Abstract
Rivers comprise only a small part of a landscape, but much of the energy of the landscape is concentrated in the river channel, which often creates hazardous conditions for humans and vast floods along the world's great rivers create creation myths and misery. Rivers form boundaries between riparian properties, between states, and between nations. They shift and create international problems as along the Rio Grande border between the USA and Mexico. They provide routes for exploration, as in the opening of western U.S. The route down the Ohio, up the middle Mississippi, and up the Missouri let Louis and Clark finally reach the Pacific Ocean, after crossing the Bitterroot Mountains and continuing down the Snake and Columbia rivers. Exploration of Africa was primarily along the Nile, Niger, Congo, and Zambezi rivers. Dwellers along great rivers could hardly not be influenced by behavior that ranged from relatively benign to dynamic. For example, river instability, as discussed in the previous chapters, could create environmental conditions leading to uncertainty for the riparian dweller. Diamond (1999) demonstrates the effect of environmental conditions on diverse human groups, and it may not be too problematic to suggest that river type may in the past have had major impacts on human perspectives. For example, if one river is stable and another subject to shift and avulsion, would not the perceptions of the two populations be different? For example, Macaulay in 1838 (Schama, 1995) commented on supposed affinities between French rivers and people.
Published Version
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