In Praise of Floods: The Untamed River and the Life It Brings

James C. Scott reframes rivers as alive and dynamic, revealing the consequences of treating them as resources for our profit “Informative, enjoyable, and provocative. . . . Scott’s [prose] is dry, clear, and scalding with moral purpose.”—Becca Rothfeld, Washington Post Rivers, on a long view, are alive. They are born; they change; they shif...