About the Book
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.
About the Author :
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.
Review :
“Informative, enjoyable, and provocative. . . . Scott’s [prose] is dry, clear, and scalding with moral purpose.”—Becca Rothfeld, Washington Post
““Its virtue lies in a simple, almost schematic idea pursued across disciplines.”—Timothy Farrington, Wall Street Journal
“A posthumous conclusion to a scholarly career of upending conventional wisdom . . . and [of] writing sweeping treatments of the distant past, which nonetheless managed to broach some of the most vexing political questions of our time.”—Nikil Savil, New Yorker
“Other books provide critiques of the way that humans, through their states and corporations, use, abuse and mismanage rivers: Scott’s does so with scholarship and vigour.”—The Economist
A New Yorker Best Book of the Year
“What is a river for? . . . What is a river in the first place? A line on a map, winding its way to the ocean? Or a set of relations—between silt and water, animals and humans—that expands across an entire watershed? In an era of interlocking climate crises, we need answers to such fundamental questions, and in his posthumously published In Praise of Floods, the late James C. Scott offers an expansive, thoughtful set of them.”—Kevin P. Donovan, Boston Review
“The book paints a strong picture of the challenges that biodiversity in the Ayeyarwady faces and highlights the inherent contradictions in man-made conservation efforts.”—Maximillian Morch, Asian Review of Books
“[Scott’s] wide interests are reflected in this fascinating book.”—Andrew Robinson, Nature
“In Praise of Floods examines the several ways in which homo sapiens have sought to tame and exploit watersheds, and the importance of floodplains in human culture.”—David Profumo, The Spectator
“An astonishing and beautifully written book that redefines rivers and our relationship with them.”—Tim Flannery, author of The Future Eaters and The Weather Makers
“What a gift! 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
“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
“Jim Scott has done it again! By viewing rivers as dynamic systems, he exposes our species’ lust for domination and enters a passionate plea on behalf of all sentient beings. This enthralling account is unforgettable and indispensable.”—Peter C. Perdue, author of China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia
“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
“James Scott did not write small books, and this last one takes on a scholar’s greatest challenge: how to write a history that contains all life and not just human life.”—Richard White, author of The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865–1896
“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
