The Control of Nature

The Control of Nature
Published by Farrar; Straus & Giroux
Paperback: 0-374-52259-6; $12.00US

The Control of Nature is John McPhee's bestselling account of places in the world where people have been engaged in all-out battles with nature. In Louisiana, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has declared war on the lower Mississippi River, which threatens to follow a new route to the sea and cut off New Orleans and Baton Rouge from the rest of the United States. Icelanders confront flowing red lava in an attempt to save a crucial harbor. In Los Angeles, basins are built to catch devastating debris flows from the San Gabriel Mountains.

Taking us deep into these contested territories, McPhee details the strategies and tactics through which people attempt to control nature. Most striking is his depiction of the main contestants: nature in complex and awesome guises, and those attempting to wrest control from her stubborn, sometimes foolhardy, more often ingenious, and always arresting characters.

Reviews

All three elemental battles recounted by the masterly McPhee are unified by the most uncontrolled and stubborn of all forces: human nature. --R. Z. Sheppard, Time
It is difficult to put these stories aside. If the stories bear witness to the ultimate triumph of nature over human engineering, they also testify to the triumph of art over nature. --Stephen J. Pyne, The New York Times Book Review (front page)
This book is unmistakable McPhee: the silky narrative, with keen detail and sharp dialogue, the finely drawn characters, the nimble metaphors. --Stephen MacDonald, The Wall Street Journal
Some of his passages left me gasping for breath…This book gave me more pure enjoyment than anything I've read in a long time. --Christopher Shaw, The Washington Post Book World