{"product_id":"in-praise-of-floods-the-untamed-river-and-the-life-it-brings-yale-agrarian-studies-series","title":"In Praise of Floods: The Untamed River and the Life It Brings (Yale Agrarian Studies Series)","description":"\u003cp\u003eJames C. Scott reframes rivers as alive and dynamic, revealing the consequences of treating them as resources for our profitRivers, on a long view, are alive. They are born; they change and 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 quasinatural death; they are frequently maimed and even murdered.It is the annual floodpulsethe brief time when the river occupies the floodplainthat gives a river its vitality, but it is human engineering that kills it, suppressing the floodpulse with dams, irrigation, siltation, dikes and levees. In demonstrating these threats to the riverine world, awardwinning 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 entiretytributaries, wetlands, floodplains, backwaters, eddies, periodic marshlands, and the assemblage of life forms dependent on rivers for their existence and wellbeing. 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Yale University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45901978665158,"sku":"DADAX0300278497","price":28.67,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0695\/9389\/1014\/files\/61ZAvtxajVL.jpg?v=1780334558","url":"https:\/\/ergodemedia.com\/products\/in-praise-of-floods-the-untamed-river-and-the-life-it-brings-yale-agrarian-studies-series","provider":"Ergodemedia","version":"1.0","type":"link"}