The Big Muddy: An Environmental History of the Mississippi and its Peoples from Hernando De Soto to Hurricane Katrina, by Christopher Morris

Abstract

The Big Muddy: An Environmental History of the Mississippi and its Peoples from Hernando De Soto to Hurricane Katrina, by Christopher Morris. Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press, 2012. xiv, 300 pp. $35.00 US (cloth). Christopher Morris's synthetic history of the Mississippi river, The Big Muddy: An Environmental History of the Mississippi and its Peoples from Hernando De Soto to Hurricane Katrina, traces how Europeans and their American descendants dried one of the world's greatest natural (p. 1). In it, he charts how this process between humans and environment has unfolded over [a sprawling five] centuries (p. 2). For such an expansive focus, Morris, has crafted a remarkably accessible narrative. The book is at once an environmental tour de force of the Mississippi river and a social history of peoples interconnected with her. It witnessed the rise and fall of native peoples and the bold walk into the modern age by successive waves of European colonizers and American empire builders. Each stage of human occupance and development was characterized by marked swings in land use, environmental (mis)management, economic designs and cultural necessities. Throughout this history, according to Morris, there has been a conscious effort to turn the ecosystem of the river into a drier and more habitable place. The long-term consequences are socially and environmentally deep as a repressed wet nature returned to the Mississippi Valley with a vengeance with the appearance of Hurricane Katrina (p. 204). His denouement, that modes of life and work along the river must be both adaptive and accepting for the viability of man and river, is as timely as it is provocative. Morris begins the tale with the river itself surveying the environmental history of the Mississippi river. This treatment was very much appreciated as it charted the flora and fauna of the riverine network, species diversity, biomass production ... [and] regenerative capacity (p. 7). The habits of indigenous peoples are also explored in Chapters One and Two and attempts to modify the river to their peculiar needs. It is in these chapters where Morris lays out an early and more static social and environmental vision of the Mississippi. It also serves to draw a stark contrast to more modern attempts at subduing the river. In subsequent chapters the reader is presented with an Imperial history of Spanish and French efforts to dry the wetlands suited to European social patterns and the demands of empire. Chapters Six through Eight describe American adaptations to the Mississippi via King Cotton. Efforts to dry the river also accelerated during this period. It is here that Morris's use of eco-Marxist analysis comes into focus quite sharply as the river and its attendant problems seem largely the creation of untrammeled capitalist designs. …