Mississippi River Tragedies

A Century of Unnatural Disaster

By: Christine A. Klein, Sandra B. Zellmer

Narrated by: Troy McElfresh

American engineers have done astounding things to bend the Mississippi River to their will: forcing one of its tributaries to flow uphill, transforming over 1000 miles of roiling currents into a placid staircase of water, and wresting the lower half of the river apart from its floodplain. American law has aided and abetted these feats. But despite our best efforts, so-called "natural disasters" continue to strike the Mississippi basin as raging floodwaters decimate waterfront communities and abandoned towns literally crumble into the Gulf of Mexico. In some places, only the tombstones remain, leaning at odd angles as the underlying soil erodes away. Mississippi River Tragedies reveals that it is seductively deceptive - but horribly misleading - to call such catastrophes "natural".

Authors Christine A. Klein and Sandra B. Zellmer present a sympathetic account of the human dreams, pride, and foibles that got us to this point, weaving together engaging historical narratives and accessible law stories drawn from actual courtroom dramas. The authors deftly uncover the larger story of how the law reflects and even amplifies our ambivalent attitude toward nature - simultaneously revering wild rivers and places for what they are, while working feverishly to change them into something else. Despite their sobering revelations, the authors' final message is one of hope. Although the acknowledgement of human responsibility for unnatural disasters can lead to blame, guilt, and liability, it can also prod us to confront the consequences of our actions, leading to a liberating sense of possibility and to the knowledge necessary to avoid future disasters.

©2014 NYU Press (P)2017 NYU Press

Missing 3 pages, but this is still a great app.

I loved the book and it’s content. The app works very well, but there were two problems I encountered.
First, the audible version of the book excluded pages 18-22. Second, the narrator would sometimes start reading the sentence and then stop about three words in and then start from the beginning of that sentence.
Despite these problems, I really enjoyed the book, the performance of the app, and the user friendliness of the app. My favorite think about the app is the ability the reader has to control the speed of the audio.
I followed along in the book while listening to the app. Many times I just focused on listening to the Audible audio, and I believe I was able to follow along better than when I was focusing on the words. However, this was only done for short periods of time to give my eyes a rest.
If I could change one thing about this app, I would add the words of the book to the screen as the audio plays. I believe that would make this app much more effective. Luckily, I have the hard copy of this book already. Without words, I personally am not sold on this app.
But for readers who must use audio readers, or for those that enjoy using them more than reading, then I think this app would be great. I’m on the fence about purchasing the membership, but I absolutely would if the words flashed on the screen while the audio played.

Narrator pronunciation of words and place names made me stop listening

Narrator is awful. Pronunciation of not just place names but common words is just hard to listen to. I made it about half way, the story got lost because of his diction, or lack of it.

Interesting History of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and the People of the Area

This is an interesting book to listen to, especially if you are into environmental and social issues, as well as land use law. This book covers several disasters that struck the area from about 1903 to 2005. I enjoyed the book and would recommend it. The narrator made some minor mistakes here and there, but it did not bother me. I was just happy to find this book as an audio book so I didn’t have to read it.

The chapter numbers on Audible do not line up with the actual chapter numbers of the book. I made a key below to make it possible to see which Audible chapters correspond to the book chapters.

Key:

Preface = chapters 1 - 4
Acknowledgements = chapter 5
Intro = chapters 6 - 9
Ch.1 = chapters 10 - 13
Ch. 2 = chapters 14 - 17
Ch. 3 = chapters 18 - 21
Ch. 4 = chapters 22 - 23
Ch. 5 = chapter 24 only
Ch. 6 = chapters 25 - 28
Ch. 7 = chapters 29 - 33
Ch. 8 = chapters 34 - 38
Ch. 9 = chapters 39 - 41
Ch. 10 = chapters 42 - 45
Conclusion = chapters 46 -48