In praise of floods : the untamed river and the life it brings / James C. Scott.

Author/creator Scott, James C. author.
Format Book
PublicationNew Haven ; London : Yale University Press, [2025]
Copyright Date©2025
Descriptionxxi, 220 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.
Subjects
River engineering--Environmental aspects. --Burma. --Irrawaddy River.
Flood control--Environmental aspects. --Burma. --Irrawaddy River.
Stream ecology--Burma. --Irrawaddy River Delta.
Valley ecology--Burma. --Irrawaddy River Valley.
Technologie fluviale--Aspect de l'environnement. --Birmanie. --Irrawaddy (Fleuve).
Inondations--Maîtrise. --Aspect de l'environnement. --Birmanie. --Irrawaddy (Fleuve).
Écologie des vallées--Birmanie. --Irrawaddy, Vallée de l'.
Irrawaddy River Delta (Burma)--Environmental aspects.

SeriesYale agrarian studies series
Yale agrarian studies. ^A303919
Contents Introduction: A Word about Rivers -- Rivers: Time and Motion -- In Praise of Floods: Moving with the River -- Agriculture and Rivers: A Long History -- Interlude. An Introduction to the Ayeyarwady -- Intervention -- Nonhuman Species -- Iatrogenic Effects.
Abstract "Rivers, on a long view, are alive. They are born; they change; they shift their channels; they forge new routes to the sea; they move both gradually and violently; they can teem (usually) with life; they may die a quasi-natural death; they are frequently maimed and even murdered. It is the annual flood pulse--the brief time when the river occupies the floodplain--that gives a river its vitality, but it is human engineering that kills it, suppressing the flood pulse with dams, irrigation, siltation, dikes, and levees. In demonstrating these threats to the riverine world, award-winning author James C. Scott examines the life history of a particular river, the Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy) of Burma, the heartland and superhighway of Burman culture. Scott opens our understanding of rivers to encompass their entirety--tributaries, wetlands, floodplains, backwaters, eddies, periodic marshlands, and the assemblage of life forms dependent on rivers for their existence and well-being. For anyone interested in the Anthropocene and the Great Acceleration, rivers offer a striking example of the consequences of human intervention in trying to control and domesticate a natural process, the complexity and variability of which we barely understand." -- Publisher's description.
General note"Rivers, on a long view, are alive. They are born; they change; they shift their channels; they forge new routes to the sea; they move both gradually and violently; they can teem (usually) with life; they may die a quasi-natural death; they are frequently maimed and even murdered. It is the annual flood pulse-the brief time when the river occupies the floodplain-that gives a river its vitality, but it is human engineering that kills it, suppressing the flood pulse with dams, irrigation, siltation, dikes, and levees. In demonstrating these threats to the riverine world, award-winning author James C. Scott examines the life history of a particular river, the Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy) of Burma, the heartland and superhighway of Burman culture."--Dust jacket.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references (pages 189-207) and index.
Biographical noteJames C. Scott (1936-2024) was Sterling Professor of Political Science and Professor of Anthropology Emeritus at Yale University. His many books include The Art of Not Being Governed, Seeing Like a State, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, and Against the Grain.
LCCN 2024937393
ISBN9780300278491 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN0300278497 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Stock numberYale Univ Pr, C/O W W Norton 800 Keystone Industrial Park, Scranton, PA, USA, 18512 SAN 202-5795

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