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9780700627110

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"""A smart, elegantly written, deeply researched, theoretically informed book that offers an important and original perspective on the history of the Kansas Cities while providing urban environmental historians with important tools for exploring other river cities.""--Missouri Historical Review ""An excellent work of urban environmental history that has something for everyone. Mallea's commentary on the divergent paths the Kansas Cities took to cope with problems of water quality and quantity runs throughout the book and is particularly insightful for discussions about race relations, urban planning, and watershed management at the local, state, and federal levels.""--Annals of Iowa ""[Mallea] explores the symbiosis binding together the river locally and regionally as social, scientific (medical), political, and engineered space. The book will have special appeal for those concerned with the ecology of urban and regional water system.""--Choice ""Kansas City was made possible only by the Missouri River. An unlikely river town, the city relied on its waterway for virtually all of its urban needs. Today's city residents, however, would never know it. More than a century of intensive engineering has pushed the river out of view. But in this fresh examination of the city and its river, Amahia Mallea offers an expansive view of the urban environment, illustrating just how vital the Missouri River was (and is) to economics, environmental politics, race relations, and, perhaps most importantly, public health.""--John Herron, professor of history, University of Missouri-Kansas City ""Writing passionately and persuasively on behalf of the Missouri and Kansas (Kaw) Rivers, Amahia Mallea brings much needed attention to racial and social disparities within the environmental history of the Kansas Cities. Equally important, the author uses the rather unique narrative of the Kansas Cities to steer readers towards a much broader conflict between public health and economic wealth that is as relevant today as it was a century ago.""--Kenna Lang Archer, author of Unruly Waters: A Social and Environmental History of the Brazos River"

Kansas City was made possible only by the Missouri River. An unlikely river town, the city relied on its waterway for virtually all of its urban needs. Today's city residents, however, would never know it. More than a century of intensive engineering has pushed the river out of view. But in this fresh examination of the city and its river, Amahia Mallea offers an expansive view of the urban environment, illustrating just how vital the Missouri River was (and is) to economics, environmental politics, race relations, and, perhaps most importantly, public health. --John Herron, professor of history, University of Missouri-Kansas City Writing passionately and persuasively on behalf of the Missouri and Kansas (Kaw) Rivers, Amahia Mallea brings much needed attention to racial and social disparities within the environmental history of the Kansas Cities. Equally important, the author uses the rather unique narrative of the Kansas Cities to steer readers towards a much broader conflict between public health and economic wealth that is as relevant today as it was a century ago. --Kenna Lang Archer, author of Unruly Waters: A Social and Environmental History of the Brazos River

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Amahia Mallea is associate professor of history at Drake University.

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