Is it chutzpah? The willing suspension of disbelief? Or sheer stupidity? One wonders—and so does McPhee (Rising from the Plains, Table of Contents, etc.) as he describes, most graphically, three cases of humanity living at the brink of natural disasters. The first long piece describes man's never-satisfied efforts to tame the Mississippi. The mental picture that develops is of a channel forced into deeper and deeper cuts and levees built ever higher as dams are raised and flood plains tamed in an effort to prevent periodic flooding and natural spills into distributaries. But now look at one structure (that's what the Army Corps of Engineers calls a navigation lock complex) that controls the flow where the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers come together. Its purpose: nothing less than to maintain the volume and course of the Mississippi just as it was in 1950 and thus preserve the river's connection to Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Next comes a tale of Iceland and the sheer heroism of a small band to tame molten lava by, of all things, hosing it down with water. Even their fellow townspeople laughed at such folly—until they saw that it worked. At stake was the preservation of a great natural harbor at the town of Heimaey—Iceland's richest fishing center. Incredibly, the hosing saved the harbor—but not the town, now buried deep in lava. McPhee contrasts the Nordic approach with that of Hawaiians who accept Mt. Pele's whims fatalistically, their propitiatory gestures limited to offerings of flowers and gin. The last of these cautionary tales is set in California in the canyons and surrounds of the San Gabriel Mountains. Here, the incredible views, natural beauty, and freedom from smog and city are sufficient to close many a mind to the predictable disasters that follow subtle combinations of wind, fire, and heavy rain. Neither man-made pits nor dams can then stay the muck and mud that race down the mountains to bury million-dollar homes (while their tearful owners are interviewed on TV). As always, McPhce is apt at metaphor and simile, more so here where he is less the cerebral lecturer in geology and more the reporter and eyewitness, capturing the words of people and the music of nature. First-rate.
Pub Date: June 1, 1989
ISBN: 0374522596
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1989
The book is not entirely negative; final chapters indicate roads of reversal, before it is too late!
It should come as no surprise that the gifted author of The Sea Around Usand its successors can take another branch of science—that phase of biology indicated by the term ecology—and bring it so sharply into focus that any intelligent layman can understand what she is talking about.
Understand, yes, and shudder, for she has drawn a living portrait of what is happening to this balance nature has decreed in the science of life—and what man is doing (and has done) to destroy it and create a science of death. Death to our birds, to fish, to wild creatures of the woods—and, to a degree as yet undetermined, to man himself. World War II hastened the program by releasing lethal chemicals for destruction of insects that threatened man’s health and comfort, vegetation that needed quick disposal. The war against insects had been under way before, but the methods were relatively harmless to other than the insects under attack; the products non-chemical, sometimes even introduction of other insects, enemies of the ones under attack. But with chemicals—increasingly stronger, more potent, more varied, more dangerous—new chain reactions have set in. And ironically, the insects are winning the war, setting up immunities, and re-emerging, their natural enemies destroyed. The peril does not stop here. Waters, even to the underground water tables, are contaminated; soils are poisoned. The birds consume the poisons in their insect and earthworm diet; the cattle, in their fodder; the fish, in the waters and the food those waters provide. And humans? They drink the milk, eat the vegetables, the fish, the poultry. There is enough evidence to point to the far-reaching effects; but this is only the beginning,—in cancer, in liver disorders, in radiation perils…This is the horrifying story. It needed to be told—and by a scientist with a rare gift of communication and an overwhelming sense of responsibility. Already the articles taken from the book for publication in The New Yorkerare being widely discussed. Book-of-the-Month distribution in October will spread the message yet more widely.
The book is not entirely negative; final chapters indicate roads of reversal, before it is too late!Pub Date: Sept. 27, 1962
ISBN: 061825305X
Page Count: 378
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1962
APPRECIATIONS
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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