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Against the Tide: The Battle for America's Beaches
Americans love to colonize their beaches. But when storms threaten, high-ticket beachfront construction invariably takes precedence over coastal environmental concerns―we rescue the buildings, not the beaches. As Cornelia Dean explains in Against the Tide , this pattern is leading to the rapid destruction of our coast. But her eloquent account also offers sound advice for salvaging the stretches of pristine American shore that remain.
The story begins with the tale of the devastating hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas, in 1900―the deadliest natural disaster in American history, which killed some six thousand people. Misguided residents constructed a wall to prevent another tragedy, but the barrier ruined the beach and ultimately destroyed the town's booming resort business.
From harrowing accounts of natural disasters to lucid ecological explanations of natural coastal processes, from reports of human interference and construction on the shore to clear-eyed elucidation of public policy and conservation interests, this book illustrates in rich detail the conflicting interests, short-term responses, and long-range imperatives that have been the hallmarks of America's love affair with her coast.
Intriguing observations about America's beaches, past and present, include discussions of Hurricane Andrew's assault on the Gulf Coast, the 1962 northeaster that ravaged one thousand miles of the Atlantic shore, the beleaguered beaches of New Jersey and North Carolina's rapidly vanishing Outer Banks, and the sand-starved coast of southern California. Dean provides dozens of examples of human attempts to tame the ocean―as well as a wealth of lucid descriptions of the ocean's counterattack. Readers will appreciate Against the Tide's painless course in coastal processes and new perspective on the beach.
The story begins with the tale of the devastating hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas, in 1900―the deadliest natural disaster in American history, which killed some six thousand people. Misguided residents constructed a wall to prevent another tragedy, but the barrier ruined the beach and ultimately destroyed the town's booming resort business.
From harrowing accounts of natural disasters to lucid ecological explanations of natural coastal processes, from reports of human interference and construction on the shore to clear-eyed elucidation of public policy and conservation interests, this book illustrates in rich detail the conflicting interests, short-term responses, and long-range imperatives that have been the hallmarks of America's love affair with her coast.
Intriguing observations about America's beaches, past and present, include discussions of Hurricane Andrew's assault on the Gulf Coast, the 1962 northeaster that ravaged one thousand miles of the Atlantic shore, the beleaguered beaches of New Jersey and North Carolina's rapidly vanishing Outer Banks, and the sand-starved coast of southern California. Dean provides dozens of examples of human attempts to tame the ocean―as well as a wealth of lucid descriptions of the ocean's counterattack. Readers will appreciate Against the Tide's painless course in coastal processes and new perspective on the beach.
296 pages, Paperback
First published May 12, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 18, 2013
This is interesting. It does not make you want to support wealthy landowners who have second homes on the beach. Welfare in the form of government funded U.S. Army Corps of Engineers efforts to save beach front property from the natural forces of beach change isn't something we can afford to do anymore. The hundreds of millions of dollars spent to make sure some high ranking exec can enjoy his week at the beach makes me sick. Build your home inland on higher ground and leave the beaches as they were meant to be; ever changing and beautiful.
January 26, 2013
Beachfront property is some of the most desirable real estate in the world, and some of the least stable. It’s the nature of ocean beaches and barrier islands to move, and the nature of people who build on or near them to want them to stay put. Governments, from the local to the federal level, have traditionally supported the developers and property owners, subsidizing flood insurance that rebuilds homes claimed by the sea, and providing funds and engineering expertise for seawalls, jetties, groins, and other engineered structures designed to protect the beaches from erosion. The long-term result of these efforts is a litany of unintended consequences: seawalls accelerate the erosion of the beaches in front of them, groins and jetties built perpendicular to the shore starve down-current beaches of sand, and offshore structures designed to trap sand create hazards for swimmers and boaters. None of them, moreover, do their intended job of “saving” the beach for those who have, unwisely but at great expense, built on it.
Against the Tide is a book about the science of why beaches move, and why human attempts to control them are miserable, costly failures. Cornelia Dean was science editor of the New York Times when she wrote it, and it is – as she says in the introduction – “a journalist’s book:” one built on scores of interviews, detailed and precise in its explanations, and as even-handed as the material allows. Dean is scrupulously careful not to demonize those who build on the beach, or to dismiss the intensity of their desire to save their homes and their property, but she is also unwavering in her respect for science and its conclusions. She deftly avoids science journalism’s classic pitfall: seeing “two sides” to a controversy in which the data supports only one. Her conclusion – calmly articulated and bolstered by reams of evidence from all three U. S. coasts – is unambiguous: All our efforts to control the beaches have failed, doing far more harm than good in the process, and it is time to learn to live with the beaches on their terms, rather than ours.
A decade-and-a-half after it was written, Against the Tide remains the definitive book on the science and politics of human interactions with the shore. The damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina (2005) and “Superstorm Sandy” (2012) suggest how tragically far we as a society (still) are from absorbing its lessons.
Against the Tide is a book about the science of why beaches move, and why human attempts to control them are miserable, costly failures. Cornelia Dean was science editor of the New York Times when she wrote it, and it is – as she says in the introduction – “a journalist’s book:” one built on scores of interviews, detailed and precise in its explanations, and as even-handed as the material allows. Dean is scrupulously careful not to demonize those who build on the beach, or to dismiss the intensity of their desire to save their homes and their property, but she is also unwavering in her respect for science and its conclusions. She deftly avoids science journalism’s classic pitfall: seeing “two sides” to a controversy in which the data supports only one. Her conclusion – calmly articulated and bolstered by reams of evidence from all three U. S. coasts – is unambiguous: All our efforts to control the beaches have failed, doing far more harm than good in the process, and it is time to learn to live with the beaches on their terms, rather than ours.
A decade-and-a-half after it was written, Against the Tide remains the definitive book on the science and politics of human interactions with the shore. The damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina (2005) and “Superstorm Sandy” (2012) suggest how tragically far we as a society (still) are from absorbing its lessons.
December 11, 2021
The book is very good at showing how human activity and interference with the beaches and coasts of America can make a disastrous situation due to nature's progression from occurring like on the many seawalls put up to stop flooding, only for the dunes to stop replenishing and having a storm that creates waves that get over the wall, which the beach cannot handle due to the aforementioned depleted dunes. It is very descriptive as well, with much of the book being very well written and knowledgeable with its content. It goes in-depth into places I had never heard before, such as the failed Atlantic City of the West which failed due to the water eventually reclaiming the land due to human interference. Another interesting zone of interest is the cliffs of Massachusetts. They are having their cliffs eroded by waves over time and with houses near the edges of cliffs, they are in danger of collapsing due to that erosion. So overall, this book does its job very well at showing how humanity has tried to conquer the coast, but Mother Nature fights back much harder.
June 23, 2020
Exceptional synthesis of the science of the tidal zone and human behavior of the threatened property owner and their elected officials. If America succeeds at oceanfront beach preservation America must confront oceanfront property owners who are busy building property preservation seawalls that almost always make the classic ocean-facing sand beach vanish. Especially now that sea-level rise accelerating, the American public in years to come will still be able to see the ocean standing on the concrete sea wall but not from a sand beach.
August 11, 2019
This book was very interesting and very informational. My only issue with this book is that it poses a problem but offers no solution. It does well in describing the issue of the destruction of beaches due to infrastructure and weather, but it offers no solution to help cope with these problems.
November 23, 2020
A must read for those who love going to the beach. Also, along with John Barry’s Rising Tide, a good example of the unintended consequences of our efforts to manage and ‘control’ water and the Army Corps of Engineers role in those efforts.
September 4, 2017
Good explanations of beach mechanics and solutions (although the only acceptable solution in the book is no development).
November 29, 2014
Written in 2005:
"I intended to skim this book to get info for a school project and ended up reading the entire thing in about two days. I'm fascinated by issues of people vs. nature, and this book was clearly written and easy to read without ever being condescending or simple. If you love beaches anywhere, if you live near the ocean (especially on the East Coast of the U.S.), if you're interested in conservation issues, if you like coherent descriptions of complex systems, or if you're any sort of policy maker or civil engineer, this book is well worth reading."
"I intended to skim this book to get info for a school project and ended up reading the entire thing in about two days. I'm fascinated by issues of people vs. nature, and this book was clearly written and easy to read without ever being condescending or simple. If you love beaches anywhere, if you live near the ocean (especially on the East Coast of the U.S.), if you're interested in conservation issues, if you like coherent descriptions of complex systems, or if you're any sort of policy maker or civil engineer, this book is well worth reading."
July 22, 2009
Thought provoking book about America's love of the ocean, and our lack of respect for it's power. The more we do to try to "stabilize" a beach, the more it washes away.
I would've given it 5 stars, but some of the language is a bit scientific for all those non-marine bio majors out there. :)
I would've given it 5 stars, but some of the language is a bit scientific for all those non-marine bio majors out there. :)
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews