The Everglades was America's last frontier, a wild country long after the West was won.
Michael Grunwald, a prize-winning national reporter for The Washington Post, takes readers on a riveting journey from the Ice Ages to the present, illuminating the natural, social and political history of one of America's most beguiling but least understood patches of land. The Swamp is the stunning story of the destruction and possible resurrection of the Everglades, the saga of man's abuse of nature in southern Florida and his unprecedented efforts to make amends. Now it is revered as a national treasure, and Americans have launched the largest environmental project in history to try to save it.
Through gripping narrative and dogged reporting, Grunwald shows how the Everglades is still threatened by the same hubris, greed, and well-intentioned folly that led to its decline."Brilliant." - The Washington Post Book World * "Magnificent." - The Palm Beach Post * "Rich in history yet urgently relevant to current events." - The New Republic The Everglades i n southern Florida were once reviled as a liquid wasteland, and Americans dreamed of draining it. And this book is a cautionary tale for that era. That plan is already the blueprint for a new worldwide era of ecosystem restoration. Grunwald shows how a new breed of visionaries transformed Everglades politics, producing the $8 billion rescue plan. The River of Grass stopped flowing, and 90 percent of its wading birds vanished. And though the southern Everglades was preserved as a national park, it soon deteriorated into an ecological mess. But the Army Corps of Engineers finally tamed the beast with levees and canals, converting half the Everglades into sprawling suburbs and sugar plantations. Grunwald chronicles how a series of visionaries tried to drain and “reclaim” it, and how Mother Nature refused to bend to their will in the most harrowing tale, a 1928 hurricane drowned 2,500 people in the Everglades.
The Everglades was America’s last frontier, a wild country long after the West was won. Michael Grunwald, a prize-winning national reporter for The Washington Post, takes readers on a riveting journey from the Ice Ages to the present, illuminating the natural, social and political history of one of America’s most beguiling but least understood patches of land. The Swamp is the stunning story of the destruction and possible resurrection of the Everglades, the saga of man’s abuse of nature in southern Florida, and his unprecedented efforts to make amends. The Everglades was once reviled as a liquid wasteland, and Americans dreamed of draining it.
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