Tim Palmer
This well-crafted page-turner is history and journalism at their best. The book tells with passion, precision, and clarity what has happened to a vital force of nature and offers a vision we can embrace and work toward with enthusiasm. Daniel McCool has given all who want to understand rivers a rare and precious gift.
Michael Brune
After an exhilarating whitewater ride through America's love-hate relationship with its rivers, Daniel McCool leaves us inspired and hopeful for a happy ending.
Wm. Robert Irvin
If past is prologue, Daniel McCool's eloquent history of river mismanagement in the United States should be required reading for anyone who cares about the future of our rivers. Weaving in stories that range from how polluted water killed one of Abraham Lincoln's sons to the surprising affinity toward conservationists felt by one of the greatest dam builders of the twentieth century, McCool details the multiple ways in which we have dammed, ditched, diverted, and degraded rivers. Ultimately, though, this is a hopeful book, illuminating our growing recognition that, like salmon returning to Washington's Elwha River or American shad in Virginia's Rappahannock River, we all need clean water and free-flowing rivers for our very survival.
James Lawrence Powell
Well-written, engaging, and witty--the best book I have read on rivers.
James Lawrence Powell, author of The Inquisition of Climate Science