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Holding Back the Sea: The Struggle for America's Natural Legacy on the Gulf Coast | 
 enlarge | Author: Christopher Hallowell
Publisher: HarperCollins
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 1036819
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.5 x 1
ISBN: 0060194464
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.91809763
EAN: 9780060194468
ASIN: 0060194464
Publication Date: July 1, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Shipped to over one million happy customers! Your purchase benefits world literacy!
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Book Description
Americans continue to coexist with nature only warily, in spite of our vaunted environmental stewardship. Nowhere is this complex relationship more visible than in the Mississippi River delta in South Louisiana, the country's largest unpreserved wetland. Here, more than three million acres of marshes and swamps nurture more seafood and produce more oil and gas than any other region of the country except Alaska. Yet this expanse of raw natural beauty, almost unknown outside the region, is in danger of collapse. New Orleans is in particular danger as sea levels rise and the city sinks, leaving tens of thousands of inhabitants to face the consequences if a horrific storm should strike. Holding Back the Sea intimately and eloquently exposes the vulnerability of this stark land that spreads along the Gulf Coast, as it literally vanishes -- at rate of twenty-five square miles per year, an area the size of Manhattan -- so starved for lack of nutrients, so eroded away by ever more severe storms, and so dredged for canals that it is on the verge of being swallowed by the rising Gulf of Mexico. Holding Back the Sea bears witness to an environmental crisis of staggering proportions that not only threatens this coast but has plunged the people who depend on it into a moral quagmire. Christopher Hallowell uses this crisis as a window through which to clearly and comprehensively examine a cultural characteristic, or flaw, that Americans have historically exhibited: the reluctance to recognize the finiteness of nature -- as much a part of this country's history as is its people's independence -- while at the same time proclaiming their devotion to it. In Louisiana, this emotional split of using while abusing threatens the entire region's economic foundations and has profound implications for the rest of the country. Louisiana is not alone; its predicament stands beside an array of environmental case studies: clear-cutting in Virginia and Tennessee, exhausting water resources in the Southwest, polluting Chesapeake Bay, filling in wetlands around San Francisco Bay and Long Island Sound, and fouling the Great Lakes. Through the varied use of narrative voice and rich description, Hallowell, a journalist, writer, and educator, brings into focus South Louisiana's dilemma through the people involved -- from engineers to politicians to scientists to fishermen -- to show both the marsh's and the people's fragility and vitality. There is no more important topic than the way we use nature and our natural resources and our willingness to defer to nature. Holding Back the Sea is at the heart of that conversation.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 A great informative read...we should all be reading this. June 28, 2006
Great book. I just finished it after reading Bayou Farewell (another superb read). If I could ever meet Mr. Hallowell, I would shake his hand for a wonderful job and then shake my head in amazement that all of "the groups" can't get together with one voice on the restoration and saving of the Gulf Coast area. I wonder, reading the book now, if congress would have given all of the money as requested a few years ago considering the costs of Katrina???
All You Need to Know about New Orleans' Dilemma December 2, 2005
I searched for a book that would serve as an historical explanation of New Orleans' plight, as well as an updated view on the current problems in N.O. since hurricane Katrina. I found that the author has an engaging way of "teaching" in that the reader is led back and forth between historical and scientific background and facts, and personal stories of residents of the marshlands.
The facts come from research, as well as the plethora of gov't and NOG agencies involved (DNR, NMFS, CWPPRA. EDA etc.!!) and the narratives come from trappers, fisherman, oyster reef and shrimp gatherers, shippers, etc. Some of the stories come from people who lived back in the 19th century.
The media has made it clear that New Orleans is in trouble, but I now have a clearer understanding of all the people, groups, issues, politics, etc. involved in this disastrous situation.
Or keeping up the land October 18, 2005
The book "Holding Back the Sea" is an ecological and economic history of the marshlands of Louisiana, from its first exploitation by French explorers in the 1600s to its uses as seafood farm, tourist trap, oil and gas source and port in the 1990s. The book describes the various uses for this area of America, how it all depends on and effects the ecology and geography of the marshlands, and how human influences have changed the area.
The book is divided into twelve chapters, each of them examines the human-marshland interplay from a different point of view. These views include that of alligator hunter, flood control expert, local elected official, lifelong shrimper, and conservationist. Thru reading each chapter, one gets to see the complexity of the human-human, nature-human, and nature-nature relationships, and how over the last century, the first two have worked together to destroy the latter. Specifically, alterations to the natural environment have made the land more susceptible to erosion, hurricanes, and flooding. The result is that dozens of square miles of marshland sink into the Gulf of Mexico each year. Efforts to stop this loss eventually require various parties to sacrifice, and this always dooms any effort.
The book describes in clear detail how the people of Louisiana now realize the importance of holding back the sea, or keeping the land elevated, depending on the point of view. The actions and inactions described in this book reveal a tragi - comedy of truly grand proportions, something truly worthy of the grandness of America. Though written before Hurrican Katrina of the 2005 summer, the facts and stories it contains are very important for all Americans to know. I highly recommend this book.
Holding Back the Sea September 9, 2005
This book is interesting and informative, easily read and understood by the average person. I have recommended this book to others on our campus. The chapters dealing with how Louisiana was affected by other major hurricanes, the computer simulation of "the big one", and the effects (or lack thereof) of all the discussions and money spent or to be spent were particularly interesting, especially that Hurricane Katrina has hit.
This book should have been read by every government official and citizen of the U.S.
IThe book shows that not enough people cared enough September 3, 2005
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book is an admirable discussion of the destruction of Louisiana's wetlands, the effects up to the year 2001, and the probable disastrous consequences for the future, including those that have now resulted from Hurricane Katrina.
In the aftermath of Katrina there will be many efforts to assign blame, both by the media and by politicians. This book serves as necessary background for understanding what really happened, and how it came to pass.
My own view, partly formed from this book, but also from various other knowledge of Southern Louisiana and changes over the years in that area, is that no one person or group should be blamed for the results of Katrina. Those were foreseeable and were foreseen, and remedial measures to reduce the impact of a major hurricane striking Louisiana's coastal areas and the city of New Orleans were well understood, as were their costs. So how did the catastrophe predicted in this book occur, despite widespread knowledge? Remedial measures could not have prevented very serious losses from such a hurricane, but the losses could have been greatly reduced; however, the remedial measures to achieve that would have been extremely expensive, and no group, whether of citizens, of advocates, of corporations, of legislators, of bureaucrats, or of federal or state officials, felt that expnditure of all that money, which would also have had some adverse effects, was important enough to take priority over numerous other major expenditures for the welfare of the poulation, the economy, and the environment. After the catastrophe, of course, comes the finger-pointing. But if my view is correct, the extent of this catastrophe is mostly due to the fact that hardly anyone anywhere was willing to fight for the extremely expensive remedial measures that would have limited it. This book is a somber reminder that although in most respects our private and public institutional structures in the USA work extremely well, in some cases such as this one they do not put priority on mitigating enormous risks.
Read this book and weep! (And ask yourself which other equally well-known risks of catastrophe we are taking no steps to mitigate.)
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