Rivers: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #311

by Nick Middleton

Rivers have acted as cradles for civilization and agents of disaster; a river may be a barrier or a highway, it can support trade and sediment, culture and conflict. This Very Short Introduction is a celebration of rivers in all their diversity. Geographer Nick Middleton covers a wide and eclectic range of river-based themes, from physical geography to mythology, to industrial history and literary criticism. Offering a truly global look at rivers, with examples from all continents, including Egypt, India, and Bangladesh, Middleton considers the role that rivers have played in human history from settlements and trade to warfare, and also looks at the human impact upon rivers by the construction of dams and cutting of channels.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Geography, History, Audiobook, Geology, Nature

127 pages, Paperback

First published April 26, 2012

About the author

Nick Middleton is a British physical geographer and supernumerary fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He specialises in desertification.

Nick Middleton was born in London, England. As a geographer, he has travelled to more than 50 countries. Going to Extremes is a television programme for Channel 4 about extreme lifestyles, in which Middleton experiences life in the hostile conditions other cultures must endure. He has appeared on BBC 2's Through the Keyhole.

Reviews

[Josiah Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good introduction to rivers. Middleton took an approach that was unexpected for me - and honestly not what I had hoped for. In college, my ecology course covered a lot about rivers and it was terrifically interesting. They are the veins of the earth and their importance cannot be overstated. I expected Middleton to focus on the scientific background and understanding of rivers, but instead the focus was on the history of rivers, how rivers were viewed in different societies and religious, famous rivers on this earth, and how we use rivers today. This may be preferable to some people who are looking for this type of information, but it went in the opposite direction of what I was looking for.

[ingot · Rating 3 out of 5]

like listening to a wikipedia article, mwah

friends who I force to answer my trivia questions, y'all are about to learn a loooot of river facts

[Usfromdk · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Greek mythology... Islamic gardens ... Flood legends... Mesoamerican flood myths... Yoruba cosmology... The Atlantic salmon occupied a special place in Celtic mythology ... River Spirits..."

1 star because of the inclusion of stuff like the above. No need to waste pages on crap when you've shown in other parts of the book that you're actually able to write a decent book. Some parts of this book's okay, but other parts are not.

[Jeremy Neufeld · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent entry in the VSI series and a perfectly adequate little primer on physical geography and hydrology. Want to get a very basic handle on how discharge is measured or how sedimentation works? You can bang this out in an hour.

But the sections on human culture are pure fluff. I know these are intended to be wide-ranging surveys but do the editors really think it's valuable for technical experts to spend chapters pointing out "hey, would you look at that, rivers appear in a bunch of myths" or "yep rivers appear in some books"?

Not the best of this series (say, Robert Allen's on Global Economic History) but readable, which is more than I can say for some entries.

[AnnaG · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like the OUP Very Short Introduction series generally, and I thought this would be an intriguing subject to read about. In terms of the series, the information here is as rigorous and interesting, but overall this book is not as successful at conveying that information.

The chapters have unrelated random segments spliced in and jump around a lot. It's difficult to follow the flow of the writers thoughts, which given the topic is somewhat ironic.

[Tyler Stevenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good rundown of our attachment to rivers

This book highlighted a lot of cultural benefits that we gain from rivers. It was a good read. The reason for the four stars is that I thought it would contain more scientific knowledge on rivers like was done in other books in this series. Good book nevertheless.

[Sireesha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short but fascinating little audiobook which covers interesting aspects of rivers. From impacts on trade and disputes about water supply when rivers flow through several countries. And then there's fishing and environmental impacts of introduced species. Too short to cover everything but informative nonetheless.

[Amanda Witt · Rating 5 out of 5]

As it states, this book is a 'short introduction' to the topic but has a lot of information, including the general history of how major cities around the world have been built on their rivers, some named after the landscape, and modern man made works including dams etc.

[JC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good, and it really helped me rethink rivers from so many other angles that I had not yet considered. And I have been thinking about rivers a lot, even before I got into researching watermills for school.

[Palswd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good coverage on various aspects of rivers, with many examples; writing is very accessible; would have liked a section about river-based recreation.

[Jessica Weida · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anything and Everything you wanted to know about rivers

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Geography section was good, but the other sections were kinda boring. He is a geography expert, so it is not surprising that this section, which makes up the first quarter of the book, was the best. But he probably should have just not written the parts he wasn’t interested in. If history is not your jam, don’t write a history chapter.

[Daniel Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heraclitus observed that one can never step into the same river twice. In fact, according to the author of this splendid book, one can never step into a river once, since it is not entirely clear what a river actually is, except that everyone seems to basically agree on what is a river and what isn't. Despite a not altogether promising start, Middleton manages to get quite a wide range of interesting material from his topic, ranging from the literary, cultural, mythological and social to the natural and scientific.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed thinking about rivers. I've lived my whole life (as I suspect most of us have) on or near a river, and the book talked about some of the science underlying rivers, their presence in myths, legends, and sacred traditions, their impact on history and on culture, and humanity's impact on rivers.

The book was fairly disjunct and jumped around a lot. If I was in a different mood, I'd probably have been ticked off, but it was just what a wanted: an intellectual buffet of different ways and examples of thinking about rivers.

[Jorgon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am becoming quite a fan of this series. While they will certainly not make an expert out of one, if you want a brief overview of a given subject that can be read in 2-3 hours, they are great. And there is always a decent bibliography and suggested reading list at the end, should one care to continue with the subject.

And this is one of them, so not much to say, except that it is solid, informative, and, of course, brief and broad rather than deep.

[Keeko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well done. I feel as if I had hopped around the world visiting the rivers and dams that he writes about. They are no longer just names or lines on a map. I plan to check out his other books too.

[Vikas Datta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concise yet informative account of the geographical, religious, economic and environmental aspects of these mighty forces of nature