| Book Review | Environmental History, 10.2

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| Book Review | Environmental History, 10.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The River We Have Wrought: A History of the Upper Mississippi. By John O. Anfinson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. 336 pp. Cloth $29.95.

Big Sky Rivers: The Yellowstone & Upper Missouri. By Robert Kelley Schneiders. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003. xviii + 374 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. $35.00.

John Anfinson and Robert Schneiders both approach the history of northern rivers with a concern for changing paradigms of human-nature interactions. Schneiders describes his approach as "examination of a biotic community ... [which] includes the Upper Missouri watershed and its flora and fauna, including Homo sapiens" (p. 1). Anfinson focuses primarily on the Upper Mississippi River and humans' relationships with it. The two authors differ, however, in their understandings of the causes of historical change and their writing styles.

Anfinson provides a focused history of the technology, resource-use patterns, and natural environment that created a series of three strikingly different Mississippi Rivers between St. Louis and Minneapolis-St. Paul in roughly a century. The river of the 1820s meandered and provided habitat for a wide range of flora, fish, fowl, and other animals. With 4, 4.5, and 6-foot channel projects undertaken between the 1860s and 1920s, the Army Corps of Engineers confined the river to a single main channel for navigation. This change created a fast flowing river and favored certain plants and animals. In the 1920s, Congress established the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge between Rock Island, Illinois, and Wabasha, Minnesota. The refuge protected wetlands adjacent to the river from drainage and agricultural development. The 9-foot channel project, launched in the 1930s, marked a significant change in engineering styles. The Corps built cross-river dams that created slack water ponds, again primarily for navigation, and a third ecosystem.

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