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Rivers Run Through Us: A Natural and Human History of Great Rivers of North America - Hardcover | Diverse Reads

Rivers Run Through Us: A Natural and Human History of Great Rivers of North America

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An engaging, informative, and personal exploration of some of the great rivers of North America.

The physical nature of rivers has influenced the course of human history and development, whether it be in the prosecution of major conflicts (US Civil War), patterns of development and social change (dams on the Columbia River), the economy (gold rushes, agricultural development), or international relations (US and Mexico and the Colorado River). The centrality of human–river interactions has had great impacts on the biodiversity of rivers (salmon and other threatened species) that have been the focus of historical and current intense conflicts of values (e.g., water in the Sacramento–San Joaquin system and California “water wars” in general).

Of the thousands of rivers in North America, 10 are profiled in Rivers Run Through Us:

  • Mackenzie River
  • Yukon River
  • Fraser River
  • Columbia River
  • Sacramento–San Joaquin River
  • Colorado River
  • Rio Grande/Rio Bravo River
  • Mississippi River
  • Hudson River
  • St. Lawrence River

In this engaging new work, Eric Taylor takes readers on a grand tour of 10 of North America’s more important river systems, exploring one fundamental issue for each that illustrates the critical role each particular stream has had — and will have — in the human development of North America.

ISBN-13: 9781771605113

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Rocky Mountain Books Incorporated

Publication Date: 09-24-2021

Pages: 464

Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

Age Range: 16 Years

Eric B. Taylor is a professor of zoology and director of the fish collection at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. He studies the patterns and processes promoting the origins and persistence of biodiversity and the application of such knowledge to conservation, especially in fishes. He graduated with a Ph.D. in zoology from UBC in 1989, spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at Dalhousie University, then 18 months as a visiting research fellow at the Pacific Biological Station before returning to UBC in 1993. Between 2000 and 2018 he was involved with COSEWIC (the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada) and was its chair between 2014 and 2018. In 2016 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Mark Angelo is a river conservationist, writer, speaker, teacher, and paddler. He is the founder and chair of both B.C. and World Rivers Day and is rivers chair of the Outdoor Recreation Council of BC, as well as a Fellow of the New York-based Explorers Club and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. He lives in Burnaby, British Columbia.

Read an Excerpt

"...rivers are of inherent importance to many people - beautiful and powerful systems of tremendous and unquantifiable aesthetic value, part of the well documented connection between environmental quality and human well-being. There is something about that essential quality of rivers – their “flow” – that reaches deeply into the human consciousness. It may be the energy involved in the flow of rivers or that the flow itself is suggestive of a living entity, something that moves, with a “metabolism”. In fact, four rivers of the world (one in New Zealand, one in Colombia, and two in India) were recently recognized legally as “persons” meaning that, under the law, they can be ascribed certain rights that can be enforced. These rivers under suitable representation, possess the right to sue (and be sued) as they now can have legal standing. Human fascination with rivers may also stem from the parallels between the network-like structure of rivers and that of the human circulatory or nervous systems. Indeed, in his book Seven Rivers of Canada, Hugh MacLennan cited Heraclitus, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, who considered “reality” as the state of being where Everything Flows [the literal term appears attributable to Simplicius, another Greek philosopher, to describe Heraclitus’ philosophy of reality as “ever-changing”]. Our fascination with rivers may also reflect the history of rivers both as the source of abundance and devastation for humans and the central place of rivers in human religion, mythology, and culture. Literally thousands of songs, books, poems, plays, movies, and pieces of art have been created with rivers as central themes which reflects the deep connection between rivers and human experience." — from Rivers Run Through Us