Rivers Run Through Us: A Natural and Human History of Great Rivers of North America

(Hardback)

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KEY SELLING POINTS:

Angst over drought and hugely declining levels of rivers like the Colorado River, Columbia River, and the Fraser River - all expected to only get worse with climate change - are key societal issues that have massive implications for large cities, particularly in the Canadian West and the American Southwest.

To date, there is no single volume that addresses the generality of the obvious thirst for information and analysis of the collective impact of rivers on North American society from a diverse historical, political, social, economic, and biological/physical viewpoint.

This is not a specialist book on rivers. It is an exploration of the physical diversity of 12 great rivers of North America and the critical roles they have played in the development of (largely) post-European colonization of North America.

The story and historical narrative will appeal to naturalists, people interested in environmental history, and those interested in the interactions between our physical environment and human development.

Includes an extensive bibliography, along with a list of each river and its physical dimensions, human population size, books and music that speak to each river.

A book on the great rivers of North America and how they drive development of NA human society and present current challenges is timely.

Each chapter will have 2-4 key photos, illustrations of key issues, personalities discussed in each chapter.

Each chapter will have a detailed map of physical and human features referred to in the chapter.

It strives to strike a balance between technical information and a popular account.

Of the thousands of rivers in North America, 10 are featured and profiled in Rivers Run Through Us:

• Mackenzie River

• Yukon River

• Fraser River

• Columbia River

• Sacramento-San Joaquin River

• Colorado River

• Rio Grande/Rio Bravo River

• Mississippi River

• Hudson River

• St. Lawrence River

MARKETING + PROMOTION:

National, regional, and subject-specific print features, excerpts, review coverage, broadcast and television interviews

Publicity and promotion in conjunction with author's speaking engagements

Social media campaigns, blogger outreach, digital collateral for online use

Outreach to subject-specific organizations, markets and festivals

Excerpts available

Electronic ARCs

Reviews

Praise for Rivers Run Through Us:

An inspired and thoughtfully informed guided raft ride down the great rivers of North America.
Robert W. Sandford, EPCOR Chair for Water and Climate Security at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health and author of The Columbia Icefield, Our Vanishing Glaciers, The Anthropocene Disruption, Rain Comin Down: Water, Memory and Identity in a Changed World and numerous other titles

Blending expert science, cultural history, and no small measure of valuable insights, Eric Taylors Rivers Run Through Us layers the geological history of watersheds with an account of short-sighted industrial development and its ecological consequences. His survey of a pattern of use and abuse common since the 19th century provides an intelligent and necessary foundation. This book should be required reading for anyone interested in how we have bent rivers to our will and transported ourselves to an era of water shortages, habitat loss, and species extinctions.
Eileen Delehanty Pearkes, author of A River Captured: The Columbia River Treaty and Catastrophic Change

My new favorite book about rivers. Eric Taylors grand tour of major North American basins is socially and geographically perceptive.
Laurence C. Smith, author of Rivers of Power and The World in 2050

Author Bio

Eric B. Taylor is a professor of zoology and director of the fish collection at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. He studies the patterns and processes promoting the origins and persistence of biodiversity and the application of such knowledge to conservation, especially in fishes. He graduated with a Ph.D. in zoology from UBC in 1989, spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at Dalhousie University, then 18 months as a visiting research fellow at the Pacific Biological Station before returning to UBC in 1993. Between 2000 and 2018 he was involved with COSEWIC (the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada) and was its chair between 2014 and 2018. In 2016 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.