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Old Man River: The Mississippi River in North American History
Old Man River , Paul Schneider's exploration of America's great waterway―taking the reader from the Mississippi River's origins to its polluted present and tracing its prehistory, geology, and cultural and literary histories―is as vast as its subject.
The fascinating cast of characters includes the French and Spanish explorers de Soto, Marquette and Joliet, and the incomparable La Salle; George Washington fighting his first battle in an effort to secure the watershed; the birth of jazz and blues; and literary greats like Melville, Dickens, Trollope, and, of course, Mark Twain.
Pirates and riverbats, gamblers and slaves, hustlers and landscape painters, loggers and catfishers, tourists and The Mississippi is a river of stories and myth. It's Paul Robeson sitting on a cotton bale, Daniel Boone floating on a flatboat, and Paul Bunyan cutting trees in the neighborhood of Little House in the Big Woods .
Half-devastated product of American ingenuity, half-magnificent natural wonder, it is impossible to imagine America without the Mississippi.
The fascinating cast of characters includes the French and Spanish explorers de Soto, Marquette and Joliet, and the incomparable La Salle; George Washington fighting his first battle in an effort to secure the watershed; the birth of jazz and blues; and literary greats like Melville, Dickens, Trollope, and, of course, Mark Twain.
Pirates and riverbats, gamblers and slaves, hustlers and landscape painters, loggers and catfishers, tourists and The Mississippi is a river of stories and myth. It's Paul Robeson sitting on a cotton bale, Daniel Boone floating on a flatboat, and Paul Bunyan cutting trees in the neighborhood of Little House in the Big Woods .
Half-devastated product of American ingenuity, half-magnificent natural wonder, it is impossible to imagine America without the Mississippi.
416 pages, Paperback
First published September 3, 2013
63 people are currently reading
947 people want to read
About the author
Paul Schneider
5 books28 followersPaul is currently the editor of Martha's Vineyard Magazine, the leading general interest magazine about the storied island off the coast of Massachusetts.
He is also the author of five books of non-fiction, most recently Old Man River: The Mississippi in North American History. (Henry Holt, 2013). The book was well reviewed in the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere.
Previous books include:
Bonnie and Clyde: The Lives Behind the Legend, which the LA Times called "extraordinarily immediate, not to mention lurid," and Oprah Magazine said "ignites like a combustion engine, driving the narrative toward its gruesome climax."
Brutal Journey: Cabeza de Vaca and the Epic First Crossing of North America, which Candice Millard, writing for the the New York Times, called "a fast-paced, moving story, one that is difficult to believe and impossible to forget."
The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, which Paul Theroux, writing for the New York Times, called "a happy blend of the dramatic, the colorful, the outlandish and the monumental."
The Adirondacks: A History of America's First Wilderness, which was a New York Times notable book of the year.
He is also the author of five books of non-fiction, most recently Old Man River: The Mississippi in North American History. (Henry Holt, 2013). The book was well reviewed in the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere.
Previous books include:
Bonnie and Clyde: The Lives Behind the Legend, which the LA Times called "extraordinarily immediate, not to mention lurid," and Oprah Magazine said "ignites like a combustion engine, driving the narrative toward its gruesome climax."
Brutal Journey: Cabeza de Vaca and the Epic First Crossing of North America, which Candice Millard, writing for the the New York Times, called "a fast-paced, moving story, one that is difficult to believe and impossible to forget."
The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, which Paul Theroux, writing for the New York Times, called "a happy blend of the dramatic, the colorful, the outlandish and the monumental."
The Adirondacks: A History of America's First Wilderness, which was a New York Times notable book of the year.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 95 reviews
October 26, 2024
“The river plays tricks with your sense of perception: all the previous evening and morning you have been sitting like Buddha under his tree, observing the river roll by against an unmoving backdrop of limestone bluffs and evening or morning sky. The giant barges come and go in both directions, but the motion of the river…seems immutable and constant. The moment you shove off, however, it is suddenly the land that scrolls by while the water immediately around your hull is strangely still. Apply yourself adequately to the paddle and even the water beneath your hands appears to flow backward…As if attached to a single moving particle of water in the river…you zoom ahead during daylight and it all catches up with you overnight. On land the river moves forward; on the river land scrolls back…”
- Paul Schneider, Old Man River: The Mississippi River in North American History
I have never spent a wasted day on the river. Sure, there are some who would quibble with this statement. My wife, for instance, begs to differ. Twelve hours of floating on the Missouri and drinking beer is not an accomplishment, she has been known to say. I beg to differ. I regret none of those lazy hours (though I regret some of the next-day hangovers).
“I am haunted by waters,” Norman Maclean writes at the end of his classic short story, A River Runs Through It. I think most people understand that sentiment. Water captures our imaginations, unearths our philosophical sides, and compels us to deeper thoughts. That is true whether we are staring at the awe-inspiring expanses of an ocean, or the placid tranquility of a lake. Rivers exert a special hold on us, created by their relentless movement, their dogged mutability. “No man steps in the same river twice,” Heraclitus supposedly said, “For it’s not the same river, and he’s not the same man.” I’ve never passed up a chance to stare at a current rolling down to the sea, even if it’s just a glance as I zoom across a highway bridge, and the car starts to drift, and my kids start to scream.
With that in mind, I was excited to jump into Old Man River, Paul Schneider’s historical road trip along the Father of Waters.
***
Old Man River belongs to that unique species of literary hybrids perfected by the likes of Sarah Vowell and Tony Horwitz. It is part memoir, party travelogue, and part history. It is also only partly successful.
In the beginning, I felt like I had hit a snag (or a sawyer, if you will) mid-river. Schneider tells his story in overall chronological fashion, meaning that we begin with the collision of continents and the end of the Ice Age, events which formed the Mississippi River. Starting with the birth of the river makes sense, but the digressions that Schneider takes from there are a bit more puzzling.
Before I go on, I should say that digressions in a book like this are not bad. Indeed, they are sort of the whole point. It’s a historical road trip, after all. Sometimes you find a really cool roadside attraction. Other times you find a big ball of yarn that may or may not be the world’s largest, depending on how you measure. Here, the trouble is an inability to separate the story threads that work from those that do not.
For example, at the beginning of Old Man River, Schneider dwells at length on early humanoid skeletons, Clovis points, and mound-builders. In the right hands (or in the right book), none of these topics are necessarily boring. However, Schneider deals with them in a mundane, needlessly elongated fashion. His field trips are blah, he doesn’t meet any interesting people, and his attempts at humor fall embarrassingly flat.
Also, the Mississippi River is only a fleeting presence, everywhere and nowhere, all at once.
***
This is a big point for me.
You learn early on that Schneider’s definition of the Mississippi River includes its entire watershed. That watershed encompasses a very large portion of the continental United States. The upshot is that Schneider's narrative is literally all over the place. For every arc that focuses on the actual Mississippi, there is an equally long – and far more tenuously-connected – arc set along one of its tributaries. It makes sense that Schneider would discuss La Salle and his famous explorations of the Mississippi. It makes less sense to have an extended sequence involving George Washington, the Seneca leader Tanaghrisson, and the sparking of the French & Indian War at the Forks of the Ohio. This is a fascinating story, one that I have read many times in the appropriate contexts. Here, in a book about the mighty Mississippi, it seems a needless distraction. In other words, there is more than enough history along the Mississippi River to militate against poaching stories that belong to the Allegheny and the Ohio.
Writing and publishing tends to be a zero sum game when it comes to content. For everything you put in, something else gets taken out. By taking these meanders through the Great Serpent Mound, the ill-starred travails of young Washington, and Ulysses Grant’s implacability during the siege of Vicksburg, you miss out on other subjects. The Seneca Tanaghrisson, gets 21 pages of coverage, while Mark Twain, who spent his life on the Mississippi, and wrote some of the world’s great literature about the Mississippi, is mentioned a total of three times. That is not only imbalanced, but puzzlingly imbalanced.
Okay, this is devolving into a minor rant. I’ll admit, I’m a bit fixated with the authorial choice to utilize the Mississippi watershed as a delineator of scope. Frankly, it’s false advertising. If you’re writing a book on the watershed, you’re essentially writing a book about the U.S. from Pittsburgh to Billings. That’s not what I paid money for. It also makes for a hopelessly diffuse and unfocused jaunt. I will now scream into a pillow, drink a glass of water, and continue.
***
Issues – and pillow screaming – aside, I kept reading, because if Melville and Mailer and have taught me nothing else – and God knows they have not – they have taught me persistence. Also, unlike Melville or Mailer, this is a very manageable 334 pages of text.
Around the hundredth page, it felt like my boat had finally found the current. Not coincidentally, this is about the time that Schneider actually gets in a kayak and starts heading down the Mississippi. I had assumed this personal journey would be Old Man River’s focal point. Unfortunately, Schneider’s time on the river proves an all-too-brief section, and it ends prematurely (both in real life, and in the telling). Nonetheless, it rekindled my interest, reminded me why I picked this up in the first place, and brought a welcome personal touch in what had become an exercise in secondary-source history.
***
Things are at their best when Schneider sticks to the topic promised in the title. There is an irresistible charm in the way Schneider relates the (mis)adventures of river pirates, keelboat men, and steamboat passengers. For example, I heartily enjoyed his discussion on the construction of steamboats, the conditions of travel aboard them, and their many perils. He quotes this passage from the Louisiana Chronicle about the 1843 explosion of the Clipper:
This is simply exceptional reportage, and well worth highlighting.
***
Schneider saves the best for last, using the final three chapters to explore the unnatural work that has been done to keep the Mississippi navigable, and the consequences of those actions. This exploration of the environmental impacts caused by the Corps of Engineers’ intricate network of locks and dams really saved the book for me. Of course, it left me wishing he had spent more time here, rather than traipsing along the Mississippi’s many tributaries. Sorry – I’m perseverating.
***
Having spent my whole life living in river cities, I am still not immune by to their charms. Give me a riverwalk, no matter how tawdry or forced – San Antonio’s comes to mind – and I am two-thirds of the way to a great night. There is also nothing better – as I mentioned above – than floating down a river with a beverage in hand.
As you can see, Old Man River frustrated me, mainly because it had the potential to be much better. Nevertheless, it’s ultimately akin to a day on the river. Even at it’s worse, it’s not that bad, and when it’s at its best, it can be a lot of fun.
- Paul Schneider, Old Man River: The Mississippi River in North American History
I have never spent a wasted day on the river. Sure, there are some who would quibble with this statement. My wife, for instance, begs to differ. Twelve hours of floating on the Missouri and drinking beer is not an accomplishment, she has been known to say. I beg to differ. I regret none of those lazy hours (though I regret some of the next-day hangovers).
“I am haunted by waters,” Norman Maclean writes at the end of his classic short story, A River Runs Through It. I think most people understand that sentiment. Water captures our imaginations, unearths our philosophical sides, and compels us to deeper thoughts. That is true whether we are staring at the awe-inspiring expanses of an ocean, or the placid tranquility of a lake. Rivers exert a special hold on us, created by their relentless movement, their dogged mutability. “No man steps in the same river twice,” Heraclitus supposedly said, “For it’s not the same river, and he’s not the same man.” I’ve never passed up a chance to stare at a current rolling down to the sea, even if it’s just a glance as I zoom across a highway bridge, and the car starts to drift, and my kids start to scream.
With that in mind, I was excited to jump into Old Man River, Paul Schneider’s historical road trip along the Father of Waters.
***
Old Man River belongs to that unique species of literary hybrids perfected by the likes of Sarah Vowell and Tony Horwitz. It is part memoir, party travelogue, and part history. It is also only partly successful.
In the beginning, I felt like I had hit a snag (or a sawyer, if you will) mid-river. Schneider tells his story in overall chronological fashion, meaning that we begin with the collision of continents and the end of the Ice Age, events which formed the Mississippi River. Starting with the birth of the river makes sense, but the digressions that Schneider takes from there are a bit more puzzling.
Before I go on, I should say that digressions in a book like this are not bad. Indeed, they are sort of the whole point. It’s a historical road trip, after all. Sometimes you find a really cool roadside attraction. Other times you find a big ball of yarn that may or may not be the world’s largest, depending on how you measure. Here, the trouble is an inability to separate the story threads that work from those that do not.
For example, at the beginning of Old Man River, Schneider dwells at length on early humanoid skeletons, Clovis points, and mound-builders. In the right hands (or in the right book), none of these topics are necessarily boring. However, Schneider deals with them in a mundane, needlessly elongated fashion. His field trips are blah, he doesn’t meet any interesting people, and his attempts at humor fall embarrassingly flat.
Also, the Mississippi River is only a fleeting presence, everywhere and nowhere, all at once.
***
This is a big point for me.
You learn early on that Schneider’s definition of the Mississippi River includes its entire watershed. That watershed encompasses a very large portion of the continental United States. The upshot is that Schneider's narrative is literally all over the place. For every arc that focuses on the actual Mississippi, there is an equally long – and far more tenuously-connected – arc set along one of its tributaries. It makes sense that Schneider would discuss La Salle and his famous explorations of the Mississippi. It makes less sense to have an extended sequence involving George Washington, the Seneca leader Tanaghrisson, and the sparking of the French & Indian War at the Forks of the Ohio. This is a fascinating story, one that I have read many times in the appropriate contexts. Here, in a book about the mighty Mississippi, it seems a needless distraction. In other words, there is more than enough history along the Mississippi River to militate against poaching stories that belong to the Allegheny and the Ohio.
Writing and publishing tends to be a zero sum game when it comes to content. For everything you put in, something else gets taken out. By taking these meanders through the Great Serpent Mound, the ill-starred travails of young Washington, and Ulysses Grant’s implacability during the siege of Vicksburg, you miss out on other subjects. The Seneca Tanaghrisson, gets 21 pages of coverage, while Mark Twain, who spent his life on the Mississippi, and wrote some of the world’s great literature about the Mississippi, is mentioned a total of three times. That is not only imbalanced, but puzzlingly imbalanced.
Okay, this is devolving into a minor rant. I’ll admit, I’m a bit fixated with the authorial choice to utilize the Mississippi watershed as a delineator of scope. Frankly, it’s false advertising. If you’re writing a book on the watershed, you’re essentially writing a book about the U.S. from Pittsburgh to Billings. That’s not what I paid money for. It also makes for a hopelessly diffuse and unfocused jaunt. I will now scream into a pillow, drink a glass of water, and continue.
***
Issues – and pillow screaming – aside, I kept reading, because if Melville and Mailer and have taught me nothing else – and God knows they have not – they have taught me persistence. Also, unlike Melville or Mailer, this is a very manageable 334 pages of text.
Around the hundredth page, it felt like my boat had finally found the current. Not coincidentally, this is about the time that Schneider actually gets in a kayak and starts heading down the Mississippi. I had assumed this personal journey would be Old Man River’s focal point. Unfortunately, Schneider’s time on the river proves an all-too-brief section, and it ends prematurely (both in real life, and in the telling). Nonetheless, it rekindled my interest, reminded me why I picked this up in the first place, and brought a welcome personal touch in what had become an exercise in secondary-source history.
***
Things are at their best when Schneider sticks to the topic promised in the title. There is an irresistible charm in the way Schneider relates the (mis)adventures of river pirates, keelboat men, and steamboat passengers. For example, I heartily enjoyed his discussion on the construction of steamboats, the conditions of travel aboard them, and their many perils. He quotes this passage from the Louisiana Chronicle about the 1843 explosion of the Clipper:
On reaching the greatest height, the various bodies diverged like the jets of a fountain in all directions – falling to earth, and upon roofs of houses, in some instances as much as two hundred and fifty yards from the scene of destruction. The hapless victims were scalded, crushed, torn, mangled and scattered in every possible direction – many into the river, some in the streets, some on the other side of the Bayou, nearly three hundred yards – some torn asunder by coming into contact with pickets and posts, and others like cannon balls through the solid wall of houses at a great distance from the boat…
This is simply exceptional reportage, and well worth highlighting.
***
Schneider saves the best for last, using the final three chapters to explore the unnatural work that has been done to keep the Mississippi navigable, and the consequences of those actions. This exploration of the environmental impacts caused by the Corps of Engineers’ intricate network of locks and dams really saved the book for me. Of course, it left me wishing he had spent more time here, rather than traipsing along the Mississippi’s many tributaries. Sorry – I’m perseverating.
***
Having spent my whole life living in river cities, I am still not immune by to their charms. Give me a riverwalk, no matter how tawdry or forced – San Antonio’s comes to mind – and I am two-thirds of the way to a great night. There is also nothing better – as I mentioned above – than floating down a river with a beverage in hand.
As you can see, Old Man River frustrated me, mainly because it had the potential to be much better. Nevertheless, it’s ultimately akin to a day on the river. Even at it’s worse, it’s not that bad, and when it’s at its best, it can be a lot of fun.
April 22, 2020
3.5 stars
This is a quirky mix of historical anecdotes with a bit of the author’s personal travels, endearing if not particularly cohesive. The geographical scope is quite broad, encompassing areas of the Mississippi River basin quite removed from the river itself (40% of the U.S. is in the Mississippi basin, though the points Schneider writes about are either along the river or east of it). Early sections cover the river basin’s geological history, and then move into Native American history mostly via archaeology, and the section on colonial explorations and warfare is extensive; we’re more than halfway through the book before the United States as a country is born. Because the book is not long and the time period covered is, the author seems to just tell us the stories that suit his fancy, which produce an interesting mix. The portions dealing with Native American history have been done better in, for instance, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, though on the other hand I think this is the most in-depth treatment of the French colonial/exploratory presence in the future U.S. that I’ve ever seen, which speaks to their treatment in most histories as no more than nebulous antagonists off in the woods somewhere.
My favorite part was the 60-page “Life on the Mississippi” segment set between the Revolution and Civil War, covering boat travel up and down the river both before and after the introduction of steamboats, and also river pirates and the like. The Civil War section seems disproportionately long at around 40 pages, and was less interesting to me, and then the book wraps up with a couple of chapters on the extensive dams and other artificial changes made to the river since and their environmental impacts. Long story short, alterations to make the river easier to navigate and reduce yearly flooding also reduce the sediment settling at the mouth of the river to the point that Louisiana is losing a huge amount of land area every year, while major floods are even more frequent and destructive.
There are interspersed chapters about the author’s various travels on and around the river, which are not particularly eventful but are clearly meaningful to him, and add some emotional dimension to the book. Also, on one trip he takes his teenaged son and they run along the top of a train stopped by the side of the river, which makes him a super cool dad.
Overall, this book is kind of scattershot – the author is pretty clearly just relating whatever historical anecdotes are most interesting to him, without making any attempts at being comprehensive, and it would be easy to nitpick what’s included and what’s not. However, it’s pretty well-written and as light supplemental history and travel reading it’s perfectly fine.
This is a quirky mix of historical anecdotes with a bit of the author’s personal travels, endearing if not particularly cohesive. The geographical scope is quite broad, encompassing areas of the Mississippi River basin quite removed from the river itself (40% of the U.S. is in the Mississippi basin, though the points Schneider writes about are either along the river or east of it). Early sections cover the river basin’s geological history, and then move into Native American history mostly via archaeology, and the section on colonial explorations and warfare is extensive; we’re more than halfway through the book before the United States as a country is born. Because the book is not long and the time period covered is, the author seems to just tell us the stories that suit his fancy, which produce an interesting mix. The portions dealing with Native American history have been done better in, for instance, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, though on the other hand I think this is the most in-depth treatment of the French colonial/exploratory presence in the future U.S. that I’ve ever seen, which speaks to their treatment in most histories as no more than nebulous antagonists off in the woods somewhere.
My favorite part was the 60-page “Life on the Mississippi” segment set between the Revolution and Civil War, covering boat travel up and down the river both before and after the introduction of steamboats, and also river pirates and the like. The Civil War section seems disproportionately long at around 40 pages, and was less interesting to me, and then the book wraps up with a couple of chapters on the extensive dams and other artificial changes made to the river since and their environmental impacts. Long story short, alterations to make the river easier to navigate and reduce yearly flooding also reduce the sediment settling at the mouth of the river to the point that Louisiana is losing a huge amount of land area every year, while major floods are even more frequent and destructive.
There are interspersed chapters about the author’s various travels on and around the river, which are not particularly eventful but are clearly meaningful to him, and add some emotional dimension to the book. Also, on one trip he takes his teenaged son and they run along the top of a train stopped by the side of the river, which makes him a super cool dad.
Overall, this book is kind of scattershot – the author is pretty clearly just relating whatever historical anecdotes are most interesting to him, without making any attempts at being comprehensive, and it would be easy to nitpick what’s included and what’s not. However, it’s pretty well-written and as light supplemental history and travel reading it’s perfectly fine.
January 9, 2020
Very good book about the history of the Mississippi watershed. From the beginning when everything was one continent to the Deep Water Horizon disaster. Don't be put off by the scale. It's a very readable overview at 330 pages. Has a wonderful bibliography with more books if you want to read more about any period. Could have used better maps. I read with my old road atlas next to me so I could look things up when needed. Nicely written even poetic at times. I highly recommend this one.
November 29, 2015
I would not have bought this book, it was a gift, but having read it now I recommend it without reservation. The book tells the story of the North American continent through the lens of the Mississippi River basin and its tributaries, which includes the Missouri and Ohio Rivers, the Cumberland, and dozens more. The area covered is two-thirds of the lower 48, one of the largest river basins in the world.
The book packs great stories into page after page of compelling narrative, serving up history, geography, sociology, weather, landscape, war, personalities, cityscapes, and more, all with a flow that kept me turning pages. I read American history often, but most of this history here was new to me. The most wonderful thread is that of the Native Americans, which carries through the entire book and for me was a constant revelation.
Parts of the book are written in the first person as the author travels down a section of the Mississippi with his son, giving the book a travelogue quality in addition to its historical narrative flavor. So much of this history we are not taught in school, even the section on the Civil War is fresh and revealing. Highly recommended.
The book packs great stories into page after page of compelling narrative, serving up history, geography, sociology, weather, landscape, war, personalities, cityscapes, and more, all with a flow that kept me turning pages. I read American history often, but most of this history here was new to me. The most wonderful thread is that of the Native Americans, which carries through the entire book and for me was a constant revelation.
Parts of the book are written in the first person as the author travels down a section of the Mississippi with his son, giving the book a travelogue quality in addition to its historical narrative flavor. So much of this history we are not taught in school, even the section on the Civil War is fresh and revealing. Highly recommended.
September 18, 2014
Man I love history and this book has the sweeping broad strokes of how the Mississippi was formed up till the channeling efforts of the Army corp of Engineers in the last 100 years. From first settlers, to Indian civilizations, French trappers, Spanish explorers, and the first settlers, the race of boatmen and businesses, the formation of New Orleans and other cities on the river. This book was excellent in telling the river's story!! Infused with personal stories of the author's travels canoeing on the river it plants a sense of adventure and a longing to see the river from different perspectives. Anyone who lives near the river would love this book as there is not an area untouched by this book.
September 4, 2013
This was a really fun read about a topic I have a lot of familiarity with. I've been up & down the Great River Road, dodged flooding on the river many times, crossed the river more times than I can count, and stayed in so many of the towns he mentions that I've eaten in specific restaurants he mentions. And yet the author kept me entertained with stories I've never heard before from his personal experience, and he brings up attractions like the effigy builders that I hadn't been aware of and now I want to check them out. I like this combination travelogue & history, and his writing style is so very comfortable, like having a coffee with an old friend in your favorite local coffeeshop.
September 24, 2019
This was a very readable overview of the human history and some of the geology of the Mississippi River (occasionally touching upon some of the plants and animals that call the river basin home though it is not a natural history book); it is mostly a good popular account of human history along the river with some sections framed by accounts of the author (or the author and his son) traveling on the river itself or on sites associated with the river. Though most of the book is dedicated to the Mississippi River and the lands immediately surrounding it the author many times detailed event on rivers that fed into the Mississippi (the Ohio River figured a lot into some sections) or even peripheral regions (such as the Great Lakes, only sort of part of the Mississippi River drainage) when events that occurred there had an impact on human history on the Mississippi River.
The book was divided into seven books, each organized around a theme and covering a specific span of history, the books varying from three to nine chapters in length. There was no separate section of color or black and white plates but photographs, art, and maps were included in the chapters. Occasionally some of the older maps could be hard to read but for the most part I really enjoyed the various maps. I would have liked a few more photographs of the author’s travels but this is a minor complaint.
Book One (“River of Giants”), was to me sadly the weakest book of the book. It was by no means bad, but it just didn’t make much of an impression (fortunately all the other chapters to me were stronger). It is possible I am being unfair because of it had such general coverage of topics I have read about before – the ice sheets that covered North America, the Clovis and Folsom cultures, Pleistocene megafauna – and was never bad or as far as I could tell inaccurate, it just read like the general introductions common to other history books I have read on say the history of Indiana or Michigan.
Book two (“River of Mounds”) was very interesting, covering many of the fascinating mound sites along the river (and the rivers that flow into the Mississippi), from the various effigy mounds of the upper Mississippi River watershed (what they “lack in elevation, they make up for in scale and in frequency,” noting in one passage that at one point one area in Wisconsin had “some twelve hundred effigy mounds,” with the author describing a visit to Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa that had nearly nine hundred “earthen sculptures associated with it,” as fascinatingly these types of mounds weren’t simply raised areas of earth but shaped into animals and people, some once huge – such as a 225 foot bird effigy that once existed in Hokah, Minnesota – though sadly a great many of these mounds are plowed or built over) to the mounds of Hopewell Culture National Monument in Ohio (now “really sort of a monument to a monument, or a reenactment of a ruin,” as during World War One the Army leveled the mounds and it was only after World War Two that the mounds were restored) to Cahokia in Illinois (at its peak the largest pre-Columbian city in North America, with 120 mounds and the massive earthwork known as Monks Mound, “a flat-topped pyramid that covered seventeen acres at its base and rose 100 feet over a perfectly level plaza”) to Great Serpent Mound in Ohio. I enjoyed the author’s descriptions of visits to some of these mounds and thought that it was some effective writing.
Book three (“River of Fortune”) covered the ebb and flow of Native American, Spanish, and French control of the Mississippi River and associated lands prior to British and later American dominance. Opening with a wonderful contrast of the Spanish and French entrances to the Mississippi watershed (the “Spanish came in armies that numbered in the hundreds and marched in relative formation with attendant slaves and retainers from the Caribbean and Africa; the French party consisted of six fur traders and a priest”), the author treats us with tales of first encounters with various tribes and Native American nations, the horrors of torture at the hands of Native Americans (covered in sometimes gruesome detail), the first European use of the word Messi-Sipi (an Ojibwe/Algonquin word meaning “big long river,” not “Father of Waters”), an account of the author and his teenaged son’s camping and boating trip down part of the Mississippi (one in which they “stuck to our plan of no plan and dawdled with abandon”), the tenuous claim France had to the Mississippi watershed, and some decent coverage of the Ohio River and why it figures so often in this book (“…Up the Ohio, past the mounds of Chillicothe; past the Iroquois battlegrounds and the mammoths of Big Bone Lick; past the falls at Louisville and the mouth of the Tennessee; past the Meadowcroft Rockshelter with it Paleolithic flint and past the Ohio’s own great fork at Pittsburgh…” ; clearly the Ohio alone would have made a great book topic).
Book four (“River of Empires”) covered the English and French struggle for the Mississippi River watershed, the fall of the Iroquois dominance in the region, and the eventual win by the Americans. Major topics include the causes, courses, and consequences of the French and Indian War (among other things effectively ending a strong French presence in North America and also causing George Washington to emerge “from the war as the most experienced commander among the colonial militia,” a fact obviously important later), the removal of most of the Native American tribes and nations from the Mississippi River watershed (with fortunately a few groups still remaining such as the Haudenosaunee of the Iroquois League still “in their historic heartland, straddling the country between the Allegheny, Lake Erie, the Hudson, and the Susquehanna,” as well as some of the “Ho-Chunk, or Winnebago,” remaining in Wisconsin, the Ojibwa still at Leech Lake, and the “Tsalagiyi Detsadailvgi, or Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians, are still in the Great Smoky Mountains on a tributary to the Tennessee River”), the importance of the War of the 1812 to American control of the watershed, some coverage of the many Indian wars (from the Arikara War of 1823 to Crazy Snake Rebellion in Oklahoma in 1909), and an account of the author’s paddling trip down the Alleghany River.
Book five (“Life on the Mississippi”) was to me the best part of the book, certainly the “meat and potatoes” I was hoping to get when reading a book on the river. The nineteenth century Mississippi River and life actually on the river (largely before the Civil War) is the star of this section of the book and it did not fail to satisfy. Many things were covered, including Kentucky flats (flatboats, most actually built in Brownsville, Pennsylvania on the Monongahela, one of the most common pre-steamboat boats on the river, dominant in the early nineteenth century), the evolution of music on the river (describing the voyageurs songs for instance as “often ribald, as befitting the artistic output of…men a thousand miles from any woman they knew”), some of the culture of New Orleans (“then, as now, was unlike any other city in North America”), some of the navigational hazards of the rivers (including long sand bars known as “reefs,” “ripples” or “shoals” where sand or gravel bars come in quick succession, rapids or “falls,” named sandbars like “Big-Bone, Pig’s Eye, Beef Slough, and Scuffletown”) as well as “sawyers” (“snags that pointed downstream and vibrated in the current,” that “could be massive trunks of old-growth trees, battering rams sixty feet long, or more”), “preachers” (snags that pointed upstream, “and were even more dangerous because they bowed up and down in the current, as if baptizing their business end”), Cave-in-Rock (a cavern that is on the Ohio River on the Illinois side between Evansville, Illinois and Paducah, Kentucky, which had a fascinating history as hideout for river pirates, well covered in the book), yellow fever (also known as yellow jack, with some epidemics in New Orleans claiming upwards of 20,000 lives), keelboats (the only pre-steamboat river boat really designed with upriver travel in mind, something that “without the benefit of steam power was backbreaking, soul-breaking, foot-rotting, snake-biting, fever-inducing, highly dangerous, low-paid work”), the brief attempt to enforce monopolies on the use of steam power on certain stretches of the river by certain people, the many varied economic and social effects of steamboats, the causes and horrors of steamboat explosions, a bit on the experiences of famous authors on the river (all too brief, but with some nice views from Dickens and Audubon), and a bit of coverage of the experience of slaves on the river which made for interesting if quite grim reading, noting among other things that slaves were rarely used as workers on riverboats because the rigors of work on the river “would greatly depreciate him as chattel.”
Book six (“River of blood”) was also excellent, covering events on the Mississippi River leading to the Civil War and the course of the Civil War on the river itself, primarily focused on New Orleans and Vicksburg (with some excellent coverage of Vicksburg). I really enjoyed reading about how Jefferson Davis, six years before he became president of the Confederacy, tried to stop the construction in 1854 of the first bridge across the Mississippi River (the Rock Island Bridge, at Rock Island, Illinois), a bridge that he opposed not because of concerns from “city fathers of St. Louis and the owners of steamboats” but because this train would bring in a flood of new settlers – anti-slavery or at least Free-Soilers – to new territories out west and disrupt the balance between slave states and free states. Also interesting was that the bridge was built in part thanks to a topographical survey down by a young lieutenant Robert E. Lee in 1837 and that later the railroad company in a lawsuit from the steamboat industry hired former congressman and lawyer Abraham Lincoln to defend them in court.
The final book, book seven (“On the Lake of the Engineers”) was only three chapters but covered a great deal of the Mississippi. I felt it could have been longer but was nonetheless good reading, covering the author’s journey to the mouth of the Mississippi River (happening to coincide with the BP oil spill in 2009), had some really good coverage of the history of navigational improvements and flood controls on the river, decent coverage of some of the many floods on the river (especially the infamous 1927 flood), some of the personalities involved in this stage of the river’s history (most interesting to me was James Eads for whom Eads Bridge in St. Louis is named for, a bridge that was the first bridge built of steel, built by Eads, a man who had never built a bridge, who later parlayed that fame into constructing “a pair of gigantic jetties constricting the mouth of the river [that] would scour out a year-round navigational channel,” one that he was so confidant that would work that he built it with his own money and would only take payment only after the channel was open), the possible future new course of the Mississippi River (the Atchafalaya River as the last major distributary stream not already closed by levee builders is in the process it seams of “abducting the main stream”), and why the Mississippi Delta is shrinking (and how bad this is), the fault particularly of dams which alter river speed and flow, allowing sediment to settle before it reaches the Gulf of Mexico, a third of what it was a century ago now reaching the delta, thanks to 50,000 plus dams on the Mississippi River watershed (5,099 in Missouri alone).
There is an extensive bibliography, source notes, and index.
The book was divided into seven books, each organized around a theme and covering a specific span of history, the books varying from three to nine chapters in length. There was no separate section of color or black and white plates but photographs, art, and maps were included in the chapters. Occasionally some of the older maps could be hard to read but for the most part I really enjoyed the various maps. I would have liked a few more photographs of the author’s travels but this is a minor complaint.
Book One (“River of Giants”), was to me sadly the weakest book of the book. It was by no means bad, but it just didn’t make much of an impression (fortunately all the other chapters to me were stronger). It is possible I am being unfair because of it had such general coverage of topics I have read about before – the ice sheets that covered North America, the Clovis and Folsom cultures, Pleistocene megafauna – and was never bad or as far as I could tell inaccurate, it just read like the general introductions common to other history books I have read on say the history of Indiana or Michigan.
Book two (“River of Mounds”) was very interesting, covering many of the fascinating mound sites along the river (and the rivers that flow into the Mississippi), from the various effigy mounds of the upper Mississippi River watershed (what they “lack in elevation, they make up for in scale and in frequency,” noting in one passage that at one point one area in Wisconsin had “some twelve hundred effigy mounds,” with the author describing a visit to Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa that had nearly nine hundred “earthen sculptures associated with it,” as fascinatingly these types of mounds weren’t simply raised areas of earth but shaped into animals and people, some once huge – such as a 225 foot bird effigy that once existed in Hokah, Minnesota – though sadly a great many of these mounds are plowed or built over) to the mounds of Hopewell Culture National Monument in Ohio (now “really sort of a monument to a monument, or a reenactment of a ruin,” as during World War One the Army leveled the mounds and it was only after World War Two that the mounds were restored) to Cahokia in Illinois (at its peak the largest pre-Columbian city in North America, with 120 mounds and the massive earthwork known as Monks Mound, “a flat-topped pyramid that covered seventeen acres at its base and rose 100 feet over a perfectly level plaza”) to Great Serpent Mound in Ohio. I enjoyed the author’s descriptions of visits to some of these mounds and thought that it was some effective writing.
Book three (“River of Fortune”) covered the ebb and flow of Native American, Spanish, and French control of the Mississippi River and associated lands prior to British and later American dominance. Opening with a wonderful contrast of the Spanish and French entrances to the Mississippi watershed (the “Spanish came in armies that numbered in the hundreds and marched in relative formation with attendant slaves and retainers from the Caribbean and Africa; the French party consisted of six fur traders and a priest”), the author treats us with tales of first encounters with various tribes and Native American nations, the horrors of torture at the hands of Native Americans (covered in sometimes gruesome detail), the first European use of the word Messi-Sipi (an Ojibwe/Algonquin word meaning “big long river,” not “Father of Waters”), an account of the author and his teenaged son’s camping and boating trip down part of the Mississippi (one in which they “stuck to our plan of no plan and dawdled with abandon”), the tenuous claim France had to the Mississippi watershed, and some decent coverage of the Ohio River and why it figures so often in this book (“…Up the Ohio, past the mounds of Chillicothe; past the Iroquois battlegrounds and the mammoths of Big Bone Lick; past the falls at Louisville and the mouth of the Tennessee; past the Meadowcroft Rockshelter with it Paleolithic flint and past the Ohio’s own great fork at Pittsburgh…” ; clearly the Ohio alone would have made a great book topic).
Book four (“River of Empires”) covered the English and French struggle for the Mississippi River watershed, the fall of the Iroquois dominance in the region, and the eventual win by the Americans. Major topics include the causes, courses, and consequences of the French and Indian War (among other things effectively ending a strong French presence in North America and also causing George Washington to emerge “from the war as the most experienced commander among the colonial militia,” a fact obviously important later), the removal of most of the Native American tribes and nations from the Mississippi River watershed (with fortunately a few groups still remaining such as the Haudenosaunee of the Iroquois League still “in their historic heartland, straddling the country between the Allegheny, Lake Erie, the Hudson, and the Susquehanna,” as well as some of the “Ho-Chunk, or Winnebago,” remaining in Wisconsin, the Ojibwa still at Leech Lake, and the “Tsalagiyi Detsadailvgi, or Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians, are still in the Great Smoky Mountains on a tributary to the Tennessee River”), the importance of the War of the 1812 to American control of the watershed, some coverage of the many Indian wars (from the Arikara War of 1823 to Crazy Snake Rebellion in Oklahoma in 1909), and an account of the author’s paddling trip down the Alleghany River.
Book five (“Life on the Mississippi”) was to me the best part of the book, certainly the “meat and potatoes” I was hoping to get when reading a book on the river. The nineteenth century Mississippi River and life actually on the river (largely before the Civil War) is the star of this section of the book and it did not fail to satisfy. Many things were covered, including Kentucky flats (flatboats, most actually built in Brownsville, Pennsylvania on the Monongahela, one of the most common pre-steamboat boats on the river, dominant in the early nineteenth century), the evolution of music on the river (describing the voyageurs songs for instance as “often ribald, as befitting the artistic output of…men a thousand miles from any woman they knew”), some of the culture of New Orleans (“then, as now, was unlike any other city in North America”), some of the navigational hazards of the rivers (including long sand bars known as “reefs,” “ripples” or “shoals” where sand or gravel bars come in quick succession, rapids or “falls,” named sandbars like “Big-Bone, Pig’s Eye, Beef Slough, and Scuffletown”) as well as “sawyers” (“snags that pointed downstream and vibrated in the current,” that “could be massive trunks of old-growth trees, battering rams sixty feet long, or more”), “preachers” (snags that pointed upstream, “and were even more dangerous because they bowed up and down in the current, as if baptizing their business end”), Cave-in-Rock (a cavern that is on the Ohio River on the Illinois side between Evansville, Illinois and Paducah, Kentucky, which had a fascinating history as hideout for river pirates, well covered in the book), yellow fever (also known as yellow jack, with some epidemics in New Orleans claiming upwards of 20,000 lives), keelboats (the only pre-steamboat river boat really designed with upriver travel in mind, something that “without the benefit of steam power was backbreaking, soul-breaking, foot-rotting, snake-biting, fever-inducing, highly dangerous, low-paid work”), the brief attempt to enforce monopolies on the use of steam power on certain stretches of the river by certain people, the many varied economic and social effects of steamboats, the causes and horrors of steamboat explosions, a bit on the experiences of famous authors on the river (all too brief, but with some nice views from Dickens and Audubon), and a bit of coverage of the experience of slaves on the river which made for interesting if quite grim reading, noting among other things that slaves were rarely used as workers on riverboats because the rigors of work on the river “would greatly depreciate him as chattel.”
Book six (“River of blood”) was also excellent, covering events on the Mississippi River leading to the Civil War and the course of the Civil War on the river itself, primarily focused on New Orleans and Vicksburg (with some excellent coverage of Vicksburg). I really enjoyed reading about how Jefferson Davis, six years before he became president of the Confederacy, tried to stop the construction in 1854 of the first bridge across the Mississippi River (the Rock Island Bridge, at Rock Island, Illinois), a bridge that he opposed not because of concerns from “city fathers of St. Louis and the owners of steamboats” but because this train would bring in a flood of new settlers – anti-slavery or at least Free-Soilers – to new territories out west and disrupt the balance between slave states and free states. Also interesting was that the bridge was built in part thanks to a topographical survey down by a young lieutenant Robert E. Lee in 1837 and that later the railroad company in a lawsuit from the steamboat industry hired former congressman and lawyer Abraham Lincoln to defend them in court.
The final book, book seven (“On the Lake of the Engineers”) was only three chapters but covered a great deal of the Mississippi. I felt it could have been longer but was nonetheless good reading, covering the author’s journey to the mouth of the Mississippi River (happening to coincide with the BP oil spill in 2009), had some really good coverage of the history of navigational improvements and flood controls on the river, decent coverage of some of the many floods on the river (especially the infamous 1927 flood), some of the personalities involved in this stage of the river’s history (most interesting to me was James Eads for whom Eads Bridge in St. Louis is named for, a bridge that was the first bridge built of steel, built by Eads, a man who had never built a bridge, who later parlayed that fame into constructing “a pair of gigantic jetties constricting the mouth of the river [that] would scour out a year-round navigational channel,” one that he was so confidant that would work that he built it with his own money and would only take payment only after the channel was open), the possible future new course of the Mississippi River (the Atchafalaya River as the last major distributary stream not already closed by levee builders is in the process it seams of “abducting the main stream”), and why the Mississippi Delta is shrinking (and how bad this is), the fault particularly of dams which alter river speed and flow, allowing sediment to settle before it reaches the Gulf of Mexico, a third of what it was a century ago now reaching the delta, thanks to 50,000 plus dams on the Mississippi River watershed (5,099 in Missouri alone).
There is an extensive bibliography, source notes, and index.
October 26, 2013
Paul Schneider’s Old Man River is a book that defies easy categorization. It touches on history, geography, geology, archaeology, and flood-control engineering—with elements of travel narrative and popular natural history thrown in—but is not, strictly speaking, about any of those things. The geographic scope of the book is equally broad: not just the river itself, but its tributaries and drainage basin, which encompasses nearly half of North America. Old Man River, like Walt Whitman, contains multitudes.
How well all this works for you will depend, to a great extent, on what you want out of the book. Old Man River is neither a conventional, steadily paced narrative history, like John Barry’s Rising Tide, nor a sharply delineated but well-rounded study of a place, like John McPhee’s The Pine Barrens. It is a loosely organized collection of self-contained, stand-alone pieces—some chapter-length, others little more than vignettes—that suggests a more accurate subtitle might have been: “Things about the history of the Mississippi Basin that interested me.” Antebellum river pirates thus get attention out of all proportion to their historical significance, while the drier subject of the Mississippi’s role in industrialization and the rise of the “rust belt” goes begging. The discovery of the famous Folsom and Clovis (NM) archaeological sites in the 1920s lose most of their historical context, and are related instead to Schneider’s own discoveries of Native American artifacts.
None of this makes Old Man River a bad book, or even an unsuccessful one. Schneider writes beautifully, and readers whose interests match his will likely be enthralled. It is, however, a book more likely to please fans of literary nonfiction than those seeking a serious, detailed study of the Mississippi and its impact on the humans around it.
How well all this works for you will depend, to a great extent, on what you want out of the book. Old Man River is neither a conventional, steadily paced narrative history, like John Barry’s Rising Tide, nor a sharply delineated but well-rounded study of a place, like John McPhee’s The Pine Barrens. It is a loosely organized collection of self-contained, stand-alone pieces—some chapter-length, others little more than vignettes—that suggests a more accurate subtitle might have been: “Things about the history of the Mississippi Basin that interested me.” Antebellum river pirates thus get attention out of all proportion to their historical significance, while the drier subject of the Mississippi’s role in industrialization and the rise of the “rust belt” goes begging. The discovery of the famous Folsom and Clovis (NM) archaeological sites in the 1920s lose most of their historical context, and are related instead to Schneider’s own discoveries of Native American artifacts.
None of this makes Old Man River a bad book, or even an unsuccessful one. Schneider writes beautifully, and readers whose interests match his will likely be enthralled. It is, however, a book more likely to please fans of literary nonfiction than those seeking a serious, detailed study of the Mississippi and its impact on the humans around it.
January 8, 2014
Author Paul Schneider transitions back and forth from his personal experiences on and around the rivers in the Mississippi watershed to the historical events, both human and geological, that bounded the iconic river we know today. While his writing style may at times seem to meander, it tends to imitate the river’s inexorable journey to the sea. Moreover, similar to the search for bones and arrowheads described in several of the book’s chapters, one finds interesting facts and historical events while sifting through this folksy narrative. Of special interest to me were the chapters written about LaSalle’s venture into the Illinois River valley and the subsequent interactions with the Native Americans in the region at that time.
While I share the author’s concern for the future well-being of the Big River and its tributaries, I appreciate the fact that he refuses to totally condemn the man-made activities that adversely affect our environment. Instead he takes a macro-view, acknowledging that over the long term, Old Man River, and nature herself, can undo all that man has done to thwart them. On the whole this is an interesting and entertaining read.
While I share the author’s concern for the future well-being of the Big River and its tributaries, I appreciate the fact that he refuses to totally condemn the man-made activities that adversely affect our environment. Instead he takes a macro-view, acknowledging that over the long term, Old Man River, and nature herself, can undo all that man has done to thwart them. On the whole this is an interesting and entertaining read.
July 18, 2021
Someone ate a mammoth steak as a child and never tasted it again. Someone told their children about a gigantic animal their fathers and mothers had known but no one had seen since. Someone wondered where they went. Someone may even have wondered if they had done something wrong, either by the mammoth or by the universe.
An old Japanese proverb says that if anyone sits by a river long enough they are certain to see the body of their enemy float past. This might easily be interpreted as a vaguely Buddhist rumination about living in the present: “don’t worry so much about your enemies,” in other words, “if you are at peace with yourself watching the river go by, the river will take care of them.” You can imagine the bloated bodies of romantic rivals and evil samurai drifting downstream toward and past some peaceful philosopher-shogun, who sits by a river in the delicious shade of a bodhi tree. This interpretation seems suitably Asiatic, like the ancient wanderers who came over from Siberia with their chipped rocks and their taste for big game.
This sequence of two consecutive paragraphs from Paul Schneider’s Old Man River: The Mississippi River in North American History is taken from the chapter “Mammoth Season.” It encapsulates both the wonder and the frustration of this book. First, we encounter the wonderful idea of the “last mammoth steak,” and it’s insightful. We have been examining the disputed theory of 19th century archeologists that mankind had hunted the mammoth despite what Biblical history chronicles, and it’s fascinating. Then, we’re plunged into the next paragraph and wonder why we have gone here next. Schneider is leading to his grand conclusion that the “enemy floating by is time,” which is interesting but confusing in the ongoing flow. He then pulls in a quote from Marcus Aurelius and the lingering taste of the mammoth steak as well as the drowned samurai are forgotten as we drift forward.
The entire book is written this way: Schneider meanders from topic to topic—some remotely related to the Mississippi River—without a clear path. His thesis is, it seems, the Mississippi River, but his opening prologue outlining his intentions end in a multi-page recount of encountering a crazy woman singing about crawfish pie to him in Jeanerette, Louisiana one morning. He wanted to show how the river “affects” people, I assume, but the problem is Jeanerette is on the Bayou Teche, not the Mississippi River. Unless my geography is wrong, I believe the Bayou Teche empties into the Atchafalaya River, not the Mississippi. See what I did there? The final bit has nothing to do with the former bit but everything to do with my feelings. That’s Schneider’s book. Personally, I don’t believe that personal anecdotes make for great historical writing.
Schneider’s book has merit. He describes the geological formation of the river basin well, no easy task when dealing with formations and time epochs which are practically inconceivable to we mere mortals. His enthusiasm for examining the lives of ancient people along the river is also engaging, as well as his recounts where disputed access to the waterway leads to conflict between Native peoples, between European nations, and between Americans.
But be aware: Schneider inserts his own experiences into the book, hijacking whole chapters out of the blue to recount an anecdote or kayak moment or family history or how he was lucky enough to pre-book a room in Venice, Louisiana the very week of the BP spill—and chummed up with some locals to do a spot of fishing while the world tried to minimize the damage. While fishing, we have this description:
We jigged up a few skipjacks beneath a platform that hissed and clanked like a steamboat engine. For a while a burly roughneck watched us from a steel staircase four stories above. He looked lonely, or at least I imagined he must be, out there watching the sun come up and go down on his Tinkertoy platform in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps he was thinking about his colleagues whose tower had recently blown up under them, or about his family onshore, or about potential terrorists pretending to be tuna fishing beneath his rig.
I’m sure the roughneck was musing, “Look at them stupid dumbasses.” But does this even matter? What has this to do with the Mississippi River in North American history? I expect LaSalle, Jesuits, Civil War battles—I don’t expect people fishing under a platform after another had blown up.
The title promised to show how the Mississippi River influenced and is a part of North American History; last I checked, Paul Schneider is not “North American History.” I did not sign up to have entire chapters dedicated to Schneider conversing with a woman on the banks of the Ohio or about how he has an ancestor who was an outlaw. A little more organization and pruning would make this book indispensable.
An old Japanese proverb says that if anyone sits by a river long enough they are certain to see the body of their enemy float past. This might easily be interpreted as a vaguely Buddhist rumination about living in the present: “don’t worry so much about your enemies,” in other words, “if you are at peace with yourself watching the river go by, the river will take care of them.” You can imagine the bloated bodies of romantic rivals and evil samurai drifting downstream toward and past some peaceful philosopher-shogun, who sits by a river in the delicious shade of a bodhi tree. This interpretation seems suitably Asiatic, like the ancient wanderers who came over from Siberia with their chipped rocks and their taste for big game.
This sequence of two consecutive paragraphs from Paul Schneider’s Old Man River: The Mississippi River in North American History is taken from the chapter “Mammoth Season.” It encapsulates both the wonder and the frustration of this book. First, we encounter the wonderful idea of the “last mammoth steak,” and it’s insightful. We have been examining the disputed theory of 19th century archeologists that mankind had hunted the mammoth despite what Biblical history chronicles, and it’s fascinating. Then, we’re plunged into the next paragraph and wonder why we have gone here next. Schneider is leading to his grand conclusion that the “enemy floating by is time,” which is interesting but confusing in the ongoing flow. He then pulls in a quote from Marcus Aurelius and the lingering taste of the mammoth steak as well as the drowned samurai are forgotten as we drift forward.
The entire book is written this way: Schneider meanders from topic to topic—some remotely related to the Mississippi River—without a clear path. His thesis is, it seems, the Mississippi River, but his opening prologue outlining his intentions end in a multi-page recount of encountering a crazy woman singing about crawfish pie to him in Jeanerette, Louisiana one morning. He wanted to show how the river “affects” people, I assume, but the problem is Jeanerette is on the Bayou Teche, not the Mississippi River. Unless my geography is wrong, I believe the Bayou Teche empties into the Atchafalaya River, not the Mississippi. See what I did there? The final bit has nothing to do with the former bit but everything to do with my feelings. That’s Schneider’s book. Personally, I don’t believe that personal anecdotes make for great historical writing.
Schneider’s book has merit. He describes the geological formation of the river basin well, no easy task when dealing with formations and time epochs which are practically inconceivable to we mere mortals. His enthusiasm for examining the lives of ancient people along the river is also engaging, as well as his recounts where disputed access to the waterway leads to conflict between Native peoples, between European nations, and between Americans.
But be aware: Schneider inserts his own experiences into the book, hijacking whole chapters out of the blue to recount an anecdote or kayak moment or family history or how he was lucky enough to pre-book a room in Venice, Louisiana the very week of the BP spill—and chummed up with some locals to do a spot of fishing while the world tried to minimize the damage. While fishing, we have this description:
We jigged up a few skipjacks beneath a platform that hissed and clanked like a steamboat engine. For a while a burly roughneck watched us from a steel staircase four stories above. He looked lonely, or at least I imagined he must be, out there watching the sun come up and go down on his Tinkertoy platform in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps he was thinking about his colleagues whose tower had recently blown up under them, or about his family onshore, or about potential terrorists pretending to be tuna fishing beneath his rig.
I’m sure the roughneck was musing, “Look at them stupid dumbasses.” But does this even matter? What has this to do with the Mississippi River in North American history? I expect LaSalle, Jesuits, Civil War battles—I don’t expect people fishing under a platform after another had blown up.
The title promised to show how the Mississippi River influenced and is a part of North American History; last I checked, Paul Schneider is not “North American History.” I did not sign up to have entire chapters dedicated to Schneider conversing with a woman on the banks of the Ohio or about how he has an ancestor who was an outlaw. A little more organization and pruning would make this book indispensable.
October 6, 2021
A history book that begins with the end of the last Ice Age, and continues and expands to cover not only the Mississippi River, but the entire Mississippi basin, focusing on the eastern tributaries mostly, with a lot of details about how the Indians tried to play one European intruder against the other, and how the various smaller tribes were really scared shitless by the Iroquois, who were as sadistic as Marquis de Sade himself. Interspersed with the history of the Spanish and the French trying to get control of the river, the author tells of his own attempts at exploring various parts of the Mississippi basin, going up to the source of the Monongahela and kayaking down for a ways, and camping out with his son on the Mississippi itself below Cairo. A large section is devoted to the effort by the Union forces to capture Vicksburg, where ironclads were used by both sides. I was especially interested to read about the technological problems of steamboats whose boilers exploded with dismaying frequency, leading to the first efforts by the federal government to enforce safety requirements for steamboat design. And the steamboat industry tried every legal and political means possible to stop the construction of a railroad bridge across the Mississippi, which they saw as hearkening the end of the error of steamboat commerce. Of course nowadays that commerce still occurs but with towboats and barges. The last chapters discuss in brief the efforts to control the flow of the channel of the Mississippi and how that is contributing to the larger issues of alteration of the depositing of enriching silt and the destruction of wetlands habitats throughout the whole delta area.
Quite a lovely book that took an unconventional approach to conveying the importance of the Mississippi and its tributaries,
mixing history and personal experience and conveying it all with a lucid prose style. Both fun and informative.
I'll remember how savvy the Indians were in trying to deal with the European invaders. I will remember how important the Mississippi was to the Union forces in the Civil War. Another book that emphasize the importance of the French and Indian wars to the expansion of the United States.
Quite a lovely book that took an unconventional approach to conveying the importance of the Mississippi and its tributaries,
mixing history and personal experience and conveying it all with a lucid prose style. Both fun and informative.
I'll remember how savvy the Indians were in trying to deal with the European invaders. I will remember how important the Mississippi was to the Union forces in the Civil War. Another book that emphasize the importance of the French and Indian wars to the expansion of the United States.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 3, 2024
This is a history of the Mississippi River watershed in North America. As the author says, the history of the Mississippi River is a history of the United States. Schneider begins with the development of the river basin and the first animals thousands of years ago. The first people to live along the river basin used it as a highway, as did all that followed. Civilizations came and went along the river, some disappeared leaving behind only mounds, carvings, and figures/designs on the ground and hill sides. Explorers and fur traders were the first Europeans to discover, explore and use the river for trade. As European powers fought for control of North America the Mississippi River basin became a strategic as forts were built along the rivers many of which became towns and cities later. Probably the biggest coup was Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France which gave the United States eventual control of the entire Mississippi River watershed. Various types of boats navigated the river from flat boats, keel boats and eventually steamboats making their way up and down the Mississippi. Often this was a dangerous trip as the river was and still is in constant change. He author describes the life and culture of steamboats and river towns on the Mississippi, the slave trade that took place along the river, and eventually it’s strategic significance during the Civil War. Schneider describes the various battles along the Mississippi with focus on New Orleans and Vicksburg. The post-Civil War years saw the first bridges built, more levees and dams, and other attempts to control the river system. With increased dams and levees to control the river flooding one unintended consequence has been the lack of sediment deposits in the delta which is leading to destruction of the Mississippi delta. The author also addresses the pollution problems in the entire river system. Schneider intersperses the history of the river with his own travel log as he journeys on the Mississippi and tells of his adventures on the trip. A very interesting read.
June 15, 2024
A westerner, I'd never really thought about the Mississippi other than a 19th century boundary for those heading our way or a giant river that separates Mississippi and Louisiana and surrounds New Orleans. Here, we think about our side of the continental divide, not the fact that everything to the east is, in fact, connected to this one huge river system.
This is a history book. It begins with the formation of the North American continent and goes through the BP explosion in the Gulf of Mexico just a few years ago, with stops in dinosaur times, Indigenous times, conflict times, the Civil War, and the effect of more than 100 years of Army Corps of Engineers (more than 50,000 dams!). It connects the corn, the flour, the timber, the logs, the slaves, the music, and pirates, and the wars of the central part of our nation, and connects it with periods of calm drifting down the river and sunrises and birds.
It's a great book. I learned so much.
This is a history book. It begins with the formation of the North American continent and goes through the BP explosion in the Gulf of Mexico just a few years ago, with stops in dinosaur times, Indigenous times, conflict times, the Civil War, and the effect of more than 100 years of Army Corps of Engineers (more than 50,000 dams!). It connects the corn, the flour, the timber, the logs, the slaves, the music, and pirates, and the wars of the central part of our nation, and connects it with periods of calm drifting down the river and sunrises and birds.
It's a great book. I learned so much.
June 17, 2019
Clearly Schneider’s intended topic was not the Mississippi River per se but the Mississippi watershed, which encompasses Pittsburgh, Chicago, Minneapolis, Billings, Denver, Memphis, and New Orleans—in other words much of the United States and a smidgen of Canada. Schneider had a plethora of possible topics to choose from; but to me, his choices were too idiosyncratic and derivative. Schneider spends at least a third of the book recounting events in 17th- and 18th-century New York, Pennsylvania, and the Old Northwest, mostly along tributaries of the Ohio. Then there are those rambling discussions of his kayaking down parts of the river and finding (and losing) Indian artifacts. I learned from the book—even the kayaking parts—but it seems so loosely thrown together that I would suggest prospective readers leaf through a copy before investing further time or money on it.
April 3, 2022
This book is a mix of travelogue and history. As a narrative it doesn’t hold together that well but some individual chapters are very interesting. There was a fascinating, quirky chapter that included a brief history of an antebellum fossil hunter who found mammoth bones and put them together and made the skeleton the star of a museum he established in St. Louis and a discussion of the career of the Smithsonian’s first (racist, sociopathic) curator of physical anthropology, who roamed the West looking for skeletons, measuring Indians’ heads and even beheading the corpses of recently killed women and children to take their skulls for the Smithsonian’s collections. That sort of thing was more interesting than some of the more conventional history the author related.
February 13, 2019
Not the most scientific or historic read ever, but an entertaining read as the author visits sites on the Mississippi River by boat and then describes how prehistoric animals and man lived and changed along the river. For generations, man tried to live with this changing river. Now the Army Corps of Engineers tries to force the river to comply with its wishes - and not always successfully as the river floods when it wants to .
August 22, 2019
Informative and interesting
I picked this up because I am planning a trip up and down the Great River Road and I wanted some historical perspective before beginning. I really liked the way this book was laid out in sections that focused on different aspects, I particularly enjoyed the River of Empires section. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a good one volume overview of the history of the river.
I picked this up because I am planning a trip up and down the Great River Road and I wanted some historical perspective before beginning. I really liked the way this book was laid out in sections that focused on different aspects, I particularly enjoyed the River of Empires section. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a good one volume overview of the history of the river.
September 29, 2023
This was a lot of fun. It’s about 75% history of the river and how it shaped our history, landscape, and economy, with some regular diversions into the author’s personal travels on the river. And the last 10% of the book was a very interesting discussion of the geology and engineering of the river during the last two centuries. This mix was about exactly what I wanted out of a book about the Mississippi.
September 17, 2025
A very detailed history of the world’s largest watershed basin. I learned a lot about the Mississippi, its natural process of erosion and sediment deposition, from native Americans to the French, Spanish and early settlers of America realizing its power, to its importance in the civil war and now its constrained state due to over 50,000 dams, numerous riprap bends and sandbars. What a marvelous natural hydrological wonder we have right in the middle of our country 🌊
July 14, 2018
This was a very interesting look at the Mississippi River and the importance it has carried throughout the history of our country. Actually, there is a lot of time spent on the river in pre-American eras, which is some of the most fascinating information in the book. Definitely recommended for anyone who enjoys geography, anecdotal history, or American folklore and history.
April 20, 2021
The author tells us it is the job of rivers to tear down mountains. A very readable history of the Mississippi River valley beginning with shifting tectonic plates, ice ages, the shock of human greed and brutality and brings us to a river system with over 50,000 dams built on the river and its tributaries. And still, these rivers gather the rain and tear down mountains.
November 20, 2024
Schneider takes his son on a kayak trip down the Mississippi River and in the process gives the reader the history of not only the river but the enter watershed. One finds out everything from continental drift to the various explorers who upset the world of original settlers -- American Indians. It's a fun and educational journey.
November 24, 2017
Interesting to read a history of the Mississippi River watershed over an extended period of time. Good writing and lots of interesting tidbits about the various groups that have lived in the area over time.
October 7, 2020
I learned a lot more about early Native American history. Also, I learned how influential Zebulon Pike was to Western American exploration. It wasn’t a horrible book, but moments of great information followed by too much anecdotes for my taste.
October 10, 2021
Not usually a nonfiction read.
This story of the river and its tributaries was so interesting.
Maybe I like it because I grew up on the IL River and could see the Mississippi from my dorm room many years ago.
I learned so much history and have a list of places to visit in the future.
This story of the river and its tributaries was so interesting.
Maybe I like it because I grew up on the IL River and could see the Mississippi from my dorm room many years ago.
I learned so much history and have a list of places to visit in the future.
January 12, 2024
Excellent, exceeded expectations. Putting in real dialogue from random people, mixing in just enough personal kayaking to demonstrate the writer's real lived commitment to the subject, THIS is how you write history. Humorous, thorough, starts billions of years ago, right on.
December 8, 2024
A deep duve into the History and current story of the Mississippi River. The scope of effect of life on everything and everyone in the US if not the world. We'll written and a fun and interesting read.
December 11, 2024
Very thorough and historical correct , yet very interesting and engaging, story of the Mighty Mississippi! Which also happens to be the very first place I learned to water ski in just north of Chain of Rocks just north of St Louis MO.
December 16, 2017
A well written book. Some parts a little slow, but overall a comprehensive look at the Mississippi River.
July 7, 2018
Anyone who has a connection to the Mississippi River should read this book. Schneider's writing is mesmerizing and the stories and histories told are fascinating. I loved reading this book!
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