Natural Lives, Modern Times: People and Places of the Delaware River

by Bruce Stutz

The Delaware River flows out of New York's Catskill Mountains and winds its way through woodland and rural farmland, through the great Water Gap ravine, and finally past one of the world's most industrialized riverfronts. Yet it remains one of the country's last undammed rivers, with a natural life as rich and varied as its human history.

In Natural Lives, Modern Times, Bruce Stutz has written a thoroughly modern natural history, blending keen observations of the nature of the Delaware's enduring complex of river, glacial streams, marshlands, and forest with glimpses of history and folklore and with luminous portraits of those whose lives are sustained by the river. The Delaware was the waterway of the nation's first mercantile, philosophical, scientific, cultural, and industrial heartland, hosting immigrants from Europe, Africa, and the Mediterranean, all looking for new lives along the ancient river.

In this always entertaining and often haunting intertwining of human and natural history, Bruce Stutz discovers those who regret what has been lost and those passionate about preserving what remains. Most of all, however, he lets us see what's at stake in a wonderfully diverse world. Not since Mark Twain has anyone taken such a freewheeling river journey.

400 pages, Paperback

First published April 21, 1992

Reviews

[Theresa Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just love this book in had a chance to interview the author when it came out and loved hearing about his journey along the Delaware. This book truly takes readers along the shores of the Delaware and introduces them to characters and neighborhoods, and provides one of the beet arguments for preserving any river.

[Tim Slavin]

I just loved this book. Equal parts natural and social history. Beautiful.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like I discovered a treasure when I picked this up at a used bookstore. I loved it. I want all my friends and family to read it—especially those in NJ and Pennsylvania. The The Delaware River is a familiar friend and I’ve had so many great experiences all along it—from lower Delaware up to New York State. Stutz brings together scientific information with oral history, archaeology and natural history. The personal encounters and observations from the interesting people he interviews build the story of our relationship to the River through the years. I soaked up the info on plants, muskrats, fish, insects and water health as well. His writing is beautifully descriptive. The book leaves you wanting to do more for the health of the River, marveling at the people who live along it, and shaking your head at how we take it for granted.