Elegant writing on man's ignorance about nature

books:


	• The Control of Nature John McPhee Macfarlane Walter & Ross, 1994 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 29 reviews
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Engineering skill, policy blunders:

Mc Phee presents three well written, beautifully researched case studies, short term marvels of engineering skill and determination, doomed from the outset by humanity's ignorance and disregard of natural processes. This book examines an unstable river system in Southern Louisiana, unpredictable massive lava flows in Iceland, and episodic debris flows in Los Angeles mountain foothills. Each case presents the heroic bad judgement of short-lived humans in conflict with gradual natural processes, catastrophic at long intervals, by human measure, and ultimately inxorable, indifferent long-term to our futile efforts at intervention. He wastes few judgemental words on the human folly his stories chronicle, but lets them speak for themselves. He fills the shoes of both writer and teacher.

for more information click here

Elegant writing on man's ignorance about nature

As always, McPhee is a pleasure to read and a pleasure to review. In these chronicles, based both on narrative and on interviews, McPhee's big theme is ambition (a good thing), hubris (no problem, simple answer), and willful ignorance.
McPhee talks about three major `wars' against nature - the effort to keep the Mississippi River running through New Orleans, the semi-successful effort in Iceland to keep a volcano from filling in a critical harbor, and the ludicrous attempt to prevent fire and flooding from destroying the east side of Los Angeles. In each of these, the threats are portrayed as utterly real and frightening, the science is lucid without being boring or full of jargon, and the people speak for themselves.
If you ever wanted to change the inevitable force of geology by piling up sandbags, stop a lava flow by spraying water on it, or keep your house from being filled with boulders and sand (debris flow) - this book will be a lesson on fighting rear guard actions against enemies that will, eventually, win.

for more information click here

Relevant as ever!

McPhee's book may not be new, but his point - that trying to control nature leads to unintended consequences - is a important today as it was when it was published. The section on the Mississippi is especially poignant, considering the damage that the delta has experienced. Peg

Can Man Ever Really Control Nature?

An intriguing book on man's efforts, as the title says, to control nature. The question is, can or will man succeed. The book leaves it open to conjecture, but does an excellent, though sometimes wordy job, of describing man's efforts...

The Mississippi River chapter badly needed a map to help the reader udnerstand perspective and location. Imagine New Orleans high and dry with what is now the Mighty Mississippi as a meara creed passing the French Quarter. hard to imagine, but possible, even probable...

The image of men using water hoses to cool and direct lava is, at first, unbelievable and incomprehensible, but it worked...and the chapter on California debris (not mud) slides is extremely enlightening....a good book to learn about nature and things you woudn't normally think about...

Recommended.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

hot