The control of nature

Science and nature

Print length: 272 pagesNoonday Press, 1990

Description

Across three long essays, John McPhee examines attempts to contain natural forces that refuse to behave like manageable opponents. On the lower Mississippi, the Atchafalaya threatens to capture part of the river’s flow, while Army Corps of Engineers infrastructure works to preserve an established channel and protect places including Morgan City, Louisiana. McPhee then turns to the battle against Iceland’s 1973 Eldfell volcanic eruption and to efforts to control debris flows threatening Los Angeles. Each case combines geology, engineering, local history, and the perspectives of people living beside unstable landscapes. By presenting nature and its determined human adversaries as equally formidable contestants, the book explores both the ingenuity of large interventions and the permanent uncertainty beneath claims of control.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Descriptive · Essayistic · Journalistic

Pace

Measured

Tone

Atmospheric · Cerebral · Reflective · Tense

Structure

Anthology

Focus

Atmosphere · Ideas · Information

Emotional intensity

3 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 3 / 5
Ideas: 3 / 5
Structure: 2 / 5
Background knowledge: 2 / 5

Themes

CommunityNature and environmentPowerTechnology and society

About John McPhee

John McPhee is an American writer and a pioneer of creative nonfiction whose career has joined patient reporting to literary construction. After beginning at Time, he formed a long association with The New Yorker, where much of the material in his books first appeared, and he has taught nonfiction writing at Princeton University since 1974. His subjects range unusually widely: geology, engineering, conservation, commerce, transportation, regional life, and specialized scientific work. What holds this varied body of work together is his method. McPhee spends time with people who possess deep practical knowledge, renders character and place precisely, and builds complex explanations through scenes and journeys. Annals of the Former World turns travel with geologists along Interstate 80 into a continental history, while The Control of Nature examines efforts to contain powerful natural systems. In Encounters with the Archdruid and Coming into the Country, competing ideas about wilderness, development, and settlement emerge through observed encounters rather than authorial display. His prose makes difficult or obscure subjects approachable without simplifying their substance.