Overview

James C. Scott reframes rivers as alive and dynamic, revealing the consequences of treating them as resources for our profit 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.

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9780300278491

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Reviews

“What a gift that, if we must lose James Scott, we at least gain his insights on rivers and the power of their unruliness. This book will reshape the world around you.”—Boyce Upholt, author of The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi   “With characteristic and subtle insight, James Scott challenges our preconceptions of what rivers are, arguing for a perspective including river species and landscapes as well as multiple time scales. Bold and original.”—Ruth Mostern, author of The Yellow River: A Natural and Unnatural History “In this personal and engaging book, James Scott makes the provocative, big argument that we should live with floods. Agree with him or not, his ideas will settle in like a burr; and that is the charm of this book!”—David Biggs, author of Footprints of War: Militarized Landscapes in Vietnam “In Praise of Floods explores international and holistic perspectives of rivers and floods. Using the Ayeyarwady River as a case study, James Scott illustrates how flooding can change landscapes, agricultural production, and responses to natural disasters as well as political upheavals.”—Alan P. Covich, University of Georgia “A good book teaches new knowledge. A great book opens new ways of seeing the world. In Praise of Floods is the latter, opening readers to new ways of thinking about rivers and, hopefully, new ethics for co-living with them.”—Ling Zhang, author of The River, the Plain, and the State: An Environmental Drama in Northern Song China, 1048–1128

“With characteristic and subtle insight, James Scott challenges our preconceptions of what rivers are, arguing for a perspective including river species and landscapes as well as multiple time scales. Bold and original.”—Ruth Mostern, author of The Yellow River: A Natural and Unnatural History “A good book teaches new knowledge. A great book opens new ways of seeing the world. In Praise of Floods is the latter, opening readers to new ways of thinking about rivers and, hopefully, new ethics for co-living with them.”—Ling Zhang, author of The River, the Plain, and the State: An Environmental Drama in Northern Song China, 1048–1128 “In this personal and engaging book, James Scott makes the provocative, big argument that we should live with floods. Agree with him or not, his ideas will settle in like a burr; and that is the charm of this book!”—David Biggs, author of Footprints of War: Militarized Landscapes in Vietnam “In Praise of Floods explores international and holistic perspectives of rivers and floods. Using the Ayeyarwady River as a case study, James Scott illustrates how flooding can change landscapes, agricultural production, and responses to natural disasters as well as political upheavals.”—Alan P. Covich, University of Georgia

Author Information

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.

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