Review by New York Times Review
Doyle's book tells the story of how rivers have shaped the United States from its founding, when cities were located astride rivers that served as transportation arteries for goods to move up- and downstream. As the new nation added lands, the federal government began to play an essential role in regulating rivers that crossed state boundaries, building dams for flood control and water supply, and overseeing the hydroelectric power they provided. In the latter half of the 20th century, environmental concerns prompted all levels of government to change course. Most notably, the Army Corps of Engineers, which has done more to straighten and confine rivers than any agency in the history of the world, remade itself into a force for restoring meanders in rivers, guarding endangered species and protecting wetlands. Doyle grafts his original ideas and research onto a big argument that doesn't quite hold up. To be sure, rivers shaped American society. But the federal government's authority, under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution and the 16th Amendment's power to generate revenue for federal projects, affected far more than rivers. It's a stretch to claim that the "whole economic history of the United States" is the story of determining which level of government would provide water. Other economic historians place substantially more emphasis on railroads and the Interstate Highway System, for instance. Still, Doyle's historical perspective offers a poignant account of how financing the country's water and wastewater systems began at the local level, moved to the federal level, then, following the Reagan Revolution and the pulling back of federal funds, brought us to our current situation. Today, Washington provides almost no help to cash-strapped states and cities to rehabilitate their water systems.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [April 8, 2018]
Review by Booklist Review
The lyrics of America the Beautiful eminently praise the country's purple mountains and waves of grain but say nothing of its more than three-million miles of flowing rivers. Yet as Duke University environmental science professor Doyle observes in this informative look at the history and management of the nation's waterways, rivers like the Hudson, Mississippi, and Potomac have played indispensable roles not only in creating state boundaries and port cities but also in establishing a thriving federal economy. Covering a broad sweep of American history, Doyle peers back at seminal river-related milestones, such as the Gold Rush launch in 1848 and Hoover Dam's construction during the Depression. The author also sorts through the tangle of regulations and resource management policies that have affected how river water is channeled to businesses and consumers, leading at times to some bitter fights over who controls which parts of which rivers, since, unlike drawing land borders, dividing water is not intuitive. Readers interested in everything from American history to business, engineering, environmental concerns, and canoeing will find Doyle's work absorbing and educational.--Hays, Carl Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Doyle, professor of river science and policy at Duke University, pays tribute to America's waterways in this worthy history, noting their importance to the country's development and its basic identity. Covering such topics as trade, politics, and environmentalism, Doyle looks at how the Erie Canal, for example, helped facilitate trade and commerce between the North Atlantic coast and the "burgeoning West." The "once obscure towns" of Syracuse, Utica, Rochester, and Buffalo developed as "hubs of nineteenth-century manufacturing and industrialization," while New York City became an entry point for European "immigrants heading toward America's interior." Doyle then turns his attention to the Mississippi River and the establishment of levee systems and flood controls along it. His discussions with Mississippi River towboat pilot Donnie Randleman and towboat captain Robert "Howdy" Duty add color and character to the narrative. Doyle rounds out this volume by examining ways in which Americans have altered rivers over the years. Gross and negligent pollution of industrial waterways-one result of which was that the Cuyahoga River in Ohio infamously burned in 1969-would eventually give rise to movements for river conservation and restoration. Doyle tackles the shifts in how America has viewed and used its extensive waterways, producing a comprehensive and enjoyable account. Illus. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Doyle (director, Water Policy Program, Nicolas Inst. for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke Univ.) provides readers with an environmental history of the United States using the country's several rivers as his guide. Many connections between the earliest years of this nation and her rivers display how these waterways shaped politics, society, and the economy. Chapter titles such as "Navigating the Republic," "The Rise of the Levees," and "Water Wars" nicely organize the text. Important events, such as the creation of the Army Corps of Engineers; how city governments took over sewers and waste management; the building of the Hoover Dam, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the devastating failure of the New Orleans' levees during Hurricane Katrina are tracked and examined. Doyle also interviews people who live their lives around water, including a tugboat captain and a rancher trying to obtain water rights. Images and diagrams of how some of these waterways were rerouted help readers envision the drastic changes. VERDICT Recommended for fans of U.S. environmental history, especially as it relates to -rivers.-Jason L. Steagall, Gateway Technical Coll. Lib., Elkhorn, WI © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A vigorous look at American history through the nation's waterways.In at least some measure, writes Doyle (River Science and Policy/Duke Univ.), federalism was born of an effort to regulate the use of waterways that, in the eastern portion of the country, often lay entirely within individual states: the James, for instance, in Virginia, and the Hudson in New York. In the 18th century, private river companies had formed with "modest ambitions: keeping their river cleared of logs, sandbars, and any other blockages." The newly formed federal government stepped in, placing rivers in the national domain; it's no accident, writes the author, that the U.S. Military Academy was sited alongside a river, since its graduates were trained to be river engineers above all else. Where states retained power, they sometimes governed for the eventuality of a flood, as with the levee districts along the Mississippi in the South. However, when Ronald Reagan's administration made moves to revert power to the states, "this meant putting the impetus back on local and state governments to spend their own money on projects," which was a nonstarter. Doyle links subsequent developments in taxation, environmental policy, energy, and resource management to the management of water, with all its many tangles; as he notes, for example, "fences dividing fields or lines dividing a map; both are intuitive. Dividing water is not so intuitive." Thus, the fight continues over such things as the allocation of the Colorado River or the ownership of the mouth of the Columbia. Doyle is not the first to look at history through the lens of water; Wallace Stegner and Donald Worster, among others, have written signally important books in the field. This book is a comparatively minor entry alongside them but still worthy of a place in any water-centered library.Waste, restoration, and efforts to use a scarce resource wisely: Doyle speaks well to issues that are as pressing today as in the first years of the republic. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
