Zum Hauptinhalt springen Zur Suche springen Zur Hauptnavigation springen
Beschreibung
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 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.
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 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.
Über den Autor
James 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.
Details
Erscheinungsjahr: 2025
Genre: Importe
Produktart: Nachschlagewerke
Rubrik: Hobby & Freizeit
Thema: Garten & Natur
Medium: Buch
Reihe: Yale Agrarian Studies Series
Inhalt: Einband - fest (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9780300278491
ISBN-10: 0300278497
Sprache: Englisch
Einband: Gebunden
Autor: Scott, James C
Hersteller: Yale University Press
Verantwortliche Person für die EU: Libri GmbH, Europaallee 1, D-36244 Bad Hersfeld, gpsr@libri.de
Abbildungen: 48 b-w illus.
Maße: 219 x 146 x 29 mm
Von/Mit: James C Scott
Erscheinungsdatum: 25.02.2025
Gewicht: 0,398 kg
Artikel-ID: 131042637

Ähnliche Produkte