• Complain

Christine A. Klein - Mississippi River Tragedies: A Century of Unnatural Disaster

Here you can read online Christine A. Klein - Mississippi River Tragedies: A Century of Unnatural Disaster full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2014, publisher: NYU Press, genre: Romance novel. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

No cover

Mississippi River Tragedies: A Century of Unnatural Disaster: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Mississippi River Tragedies: A Century of Unnatural Disaster" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

Read a free excerpt here!
American engineers have done astounding things to bend the Mississippi River to their will: forcing one of its tributaries to flow uphill, transforming over a thousand miles of roiling currents into a placid staircase of water, and wresting the lower half of the river apart from its floodplain. American law has aided and abetted these feats. But despite our best efforts, so-called natural disasters continue to strike the Mississippi basin, as raging floodwaters decimate waterfront communities and abandoned towns literally crumble into the Gulf of Mexico. In some places, only the tombstones remain, leaning at odd angles as the underlying soil erodes away. Mississippi River Tragedies reveals that it is seductively deceptivebut horribly misleadingto call such catastrophes natural.
Authors Christine A. Klein and Sandra B. Zellmer present a sympathetic account of the human dreams, pride, and foibles that got us to this point, weaving together engaging historical narratives and accessible law stories drawn from actual courtroom dramas. The authors deftly uncover the larger story of how the law reflects and even amplifies our ambivalent attitude toward naturesimultaneously revering wild rivers and places for what they are, while working feverishly to change them into something else. Despite their sobering revelations, the authors final message is one of hope. Although the acknowledgement of human responsibility for unnatural disasters can lead to blame, guilt, and liability, it can also prod us to confront the consequences of our actions, leading to a liberating sense of possibility and to the knowledge necessary to avoid future disasters.

Christine A. Klein: author's other books


Who wrote Mississippi River Tragedies: A Century of Unnatural Disaster? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

Mississippi River Tragedies: A Century of Unnatural Disaster — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Mississippi River Tragedies: A Century of Unnatural Disaster" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make
Thank you for buying this ebook, published by NYU Press.
Sign up for our e-newsletters to receive information about forthcoming books, special discounts, and more!
Sign Up!
About NYU Press
A publisher of original scholarship since its founding in 1916, New York University Press Produces more than 100 new books each year, with a backlist of 3,000 titles in print. Working across the humanities and social sciences, NYU Press has award-winning lists in sociology, law, cultural and American studies, religion, American history, anthropology, politics, criminology, media and communication, literary studies, and psychology.
MISSISSIPPI RIVER TRAGEDIES
MISSISSIPPI RIVER TRAGEDIES
A Century of Unnatural Disaster CHRISTINE A KLEIN SANDRA B ZELLMER - photo 1
A Century of Unnatural Disaster
CHRISTINE A. KLEIN
SANDRA B ZELLMER NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London - photo 2
SANDRA B. ZELLMER
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London wwwnyupressorg 2014 by New York - photo 3
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
www.nyupress.org
2014 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.
Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that
may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
For Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data,
please contact the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4798-2538-7 (hardcover)
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials
to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Also available as an ebook
To Randy, ever patient and supportive.
SBZ
To Mark, with love always.
CK
CONTENTS
The Mississippi Basin Source National Park Service PREFACE MISSISSIPPI - photo 4
The Mississippi Basin
Source: National Park Service
PREFACE
MISSISSIPPI RIVER CHILDREN
The Headwaters: Notes from Sandra B. Zellmer
When I was little, my mother bathed me in a garbage can filled with Mississippi River water. Not every night, of course, but just about every summer when my family was camping near the rivers headwaters in northern Minnesota. I suppose I smelled a little fishy, but the aroma of river water was completely familiarand comfortingto me. I savored the names of the headwater lakes where we camped, titles bestowed by Chippewa and Dakota Indians or by European explorers: Itasca, Winnibigoshish, Andrusia, Bemidji, LaSalle.
My passion for the outdoors comes naturally. My father was a third-generation German American farmer who raised cattle, corn, and alfalfa just outside of Sioux City, Iowa, nestled in the valley of the Missouri River, the longest tributary of the Mississippi. He was following in the footsteps of my great-grandfather Gustav Zellmer, who arrived at the Castle Garden Immigration Depot in New York in 1883, straight off the boat from Kolmar, Germany (now part of Poland). Sixteen-year-old Gustav was anxious to make his mark on the New World. He rode the trains west, marveling as he crossed over the Mississippi River and entered Iowa. He stopped when he reached the Missouri River. He had never seen such black, fertile soil, and he was awed by the gently rolling terrain, perfect for the plow. The rich dirt came at a price, however. It was formed and nourished by floods, like the one in 1892, which made Gustavs house list to one side and float away from its foundation. The family escapedtheir baby daughter, my great-aunt Henriette, was carried to safety by the town doctorand the house itself was later moved to higher ground.
By the time of the Great Depression of the 1930s, Gustav had amassed quite a bit of prime farmland, as well as eight children to help him. His youngest son, my grandfather (also named Gustav), relished everything the elements could throw at him. He was willing to take calculated risks and to ride out the bad years while waiting for the good ones. Most of the time, Grandpa Gus bets on corn and cattle paid off, despite floods, tornadoes, drought, hail, and pests.
My father, Mervin, saw things a little differently. As the smartest boy in his high school class, he dreamed of going to college. When he met my mother at a dance in the river bottoms of Hornick, Iowa, he was drawn to her brilliant smile and even more to her quick wit and her own bold dreams for the future. Then the Army called with other plans.
Mervin and Jessie Zellmer were married on May 27, 1951, just a few weeks before Mervin reported to boot camp. They took a weeklong honeymoon to a magical place that my father had discovered a few years earlier on a fishing trip with a buddyLake Itasca and the other headwater lakes of the Mississippi River. Instead of being squeamish like most girls he knew, my mom took to fishing and to the north woods as if she were born to it. They chased each other over the stepping stones that crossed the headwaters of the Mississippi, rented a small boat, and snapped photographs of their adventures fishing for walleye. Mom caught the prize-winnera hefty twelve-pounder.
By June 1951 when my father arrived at Fort Riley on the Kansas River (a tributary of the Missouri), it had been raining steadily for nearly two months. In reel-to-reel tapes he recorded for my mother, Dad reported that late one night in the barracks he awoke to water lapping up beside his cot. All of the men of his unit were ordered to pack up and seek higher ground. The barracks were destroyed. For the rest of my fathers eight-week tenure at Fort Riley, the men slept in pup tents on a ridge. Years later, Dad reminisced about the incessant rain, and told us stories about the poisonous snakes and saucer-sized spiders that sought higher ground, too. The soldier who forgot to shake out his boots in the morning was often very sorry for his carelessness.
As it turned out, that summer brought one of the worst floods in the regions history. During a four-day period in early July, up to sixteen inches of rain fell on already-saturated soils. On just one dayJuly 13, 1951floodwaters crept across nearly two million acres in Kansas and Missouri.
Dad eventually came home from the Korean War, unharmed, and in 1956 my parents bought a farm of their own near Sioux City. Farming in the 1950s was challenging at first, and not terribly profitable. There was not much time to travel, so my family stuck close to home and explored the Missouri River on weekends. My older sisters recall making a family decision while sitting around the dinner table one evening before I was bornwhether to purchase their first color television set or a motorboat. It was unanimous. They chose the boat, a sixteen-footer called Old Blue.
Jessie Zellmer with her monster walleye Itasca State Park 1951 Photograph by - photo 5
Jessie Zellmer with her monster walleye, Itasca State Park, 1951
Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Mississippi River Tragedies: A Century of Unnatural Disaster»

Look at similar books to Mississippi River Tragedies: A Century of Unnatural Disaster. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «Mississippi River Tragedies: A Century of Unnatural Disaster»

Discussion, reviews of the book Mississippi River Tragedies: A Century of Unnatural Disaster and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.