000461602 000__ 04139cam\a2200421Ia\4500 000461602 001__ 461602 000461602 005__ 20210513161810.0 000461602 006__ m\\\\\o\\d\\\\\\\\ 000461602 007__ cr\cn\nnnunnun 000461602 008__ 130501s2012\\\\nyuab\\\ob\\\\001\0\eng\d 000461602 010__ $$z 2012003182 000461602 020__ $$a9780199717903$$q(electronic book) 000461602 020__ $$z9780195316919 000461602 035__ $$a(OCoLC)ocn817224453 000461602 035__ $$a(MiAaPQ)EBC1073484 000461602 035__ $$a(CaPaEBR)ebr10621338 000461602 040__ $$aCaPaEBR$$cCaPaEBR 000461602 043__ $$an-usm-- 000461602 05014 $$aGE155.M57$$bM67 2012eb 000461602 1001_ $$aMorris, Christopher$$q(Christopher Charles) 000461602 24514 $$aThe Big Muddy$$h[electronic resource] :$$ban environmental history of the Mississippi and its peoples, from Hernando de Soto to Hurricane Katrina /$$cChristopher Morris. 000461602 260__ $$aNew York :$$bOxford University Press,$$cc2012. 000461602 300__ $$a1 online resource (xii, 300 p.) :$$bill., maps. 000461602 504__ $$aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 000461602 5050_ $$aValley of mud -- Knee Deep in water and snakes -- Rice -- The rise of New Orleans and the fall of Natchez -- Consolidation, transformation, conservation -- King Cotton meets Big Muddy -- The Cotton kingdom's edges made and Unmade -- Engineering the river of empire -- Drought, disease, and other symptoms of a pathological landscape -- Cotton, chemicals, catfish, crawfish -- Nature's return : hurricane Katrina and the future of the Big Muddy. 000461602 506__ $$aAccess limited to authorized users. 000461602 520__ $$aIn The Big Muddy, the first long-term environmental history of the Mississippi, Christopher Morris offers a brilliant tour across five centuries as he illuminates the interaction between people and the landscape, from early hunter-gatherer bands to present-day industrial and post-industrial society. Morris shows that when Hernando de Soto arrived at the lower Mississippi Valley, he found an incredibly vast wetland, forty thousand square miles of some of the richest, wettest land in North America, deposited there by the big muddy river that ran through it. But since then much has changed, for the river and for the surrounding valley. Indeed, by the 1890s, the valley was rapidly drying. Morris shows how centuries of increasingly intensified human meddling--including deforestation, swamp drainage, and levee construction--led to drought, disease, and severe flooding. He outlines the damage done by the introduction of foreign species, such as the Argentine nutria, which escaped into the wild and are now busy eating up Louisiana's wetlands. And he critiques the most monumental change in the lower Mississippi Valley--the reconstruction of the river itself, largely under the direction of the Army Corps of Engineers. Valley residents have been paying the price for these human interventions, most visibly with the disaster that followed Hurricane Katrina. Morris also describes how valley residents have been struggling to reinvigorate the valley environment in recent years--such as with the burgeoning catfish and crawfish industries--so that they may once again live off its natural abundance. Morris concludes that the problem with Katrina is the problem with the Amazon Rainforest, drought and famine in Africa, and fires and mudslides in California--it is the end result of the ill-considered bending of natural environments to human purposes. 000461602 588__ $$aDescription based on print version record. 000461602 650_0 $$aStream ecology$$zMississippi River$$xHistory. 000461602 650_0 $$aHuman ecology$$zMississippi River$$xHistory. 000461602 651_0 $$aMississippi River$$xEnvironmental conditions. 000461602 651_0 $$aMississippi River Valley$$xEnvironmental conditions. 000461602 651_0 $$aMississippi River$$xHistory. 000461602 651_0 $$aMississippi River Valley$$xHistory. 000461602 77608 $$iPrint version:$$aMorris, Christopher (Christopher Charles)$$tBig Muddy.$$dOxford [U.K.] ; New York : Oxford University Press, c2012$$z9780195316919$$w(DLC) 2012003182$$w(OCoLC)820623085 000461602 8520_ $$bacq 000461602 85280 $$bebk$$hProQuest Ebook Central 000461602 85640 $$3ProQuest Ebook Central$$uhttps://univsouthin.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/usiricelib-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1073484$$zOnline Access 000461602 909CO $$ooai:library.usi.edu:461602$$pGLOBAL_SET 000461602 980__ $$aEBOOK 000461602 980__ $$aBIB 000461602 982__ $$aEbook 000461602 983__ $$aOnline