I return to these three essays on humans vs. nature every few years or so. I don't tire of the drama McPhee generates in his prose. This was the first book of his I read, and have since read several more. McPhee's writing is crisp, endlessly interesting, and always leaves me wanting more. I loaned this book to a friend who I thought would like it. After reading, he booked a flight to New Orleans just to see the huge floodgates in the Atchafalia.

I'm not much of a fan of the author John McPhee, so when "The Control of Nature" came up as a selection for my book club, I was wary.

I was pleasantly surprised.

McPhee has written a very readable account of 3 places on Earth where people are winning a battle against Nature although it is equally obvious that the war is lost.

This book is in some ways even more relevant than when it was written almost 30 years ago. Then, climate change wasn't a thing. If the book were written today, most likely we would lose the story to the 'bigger story.'

Thankfully, climate is absent. Instead, the reader can add that layer themselves, especially to the 1st and the 3rd stories - the Atchafalaya capturing the Mississippi, stranding Baton Rouge and New Orleans, perhaps in our lifetime, and the San Gabriel Mountains burying parts of Los Angeles when LA county has to give up the fight because it can no longer afford it.

As for readability, the first of the three stories is the best. As the book wears on, the stories become a bit more repetitive, in the sense that scenes are repeated too often and the train of thought seems to wander. A small price to pay to better appreciate the ultimate limitations of resisting strong and relentless natural forces, even for a country as rich as the USA.

Loved this book. McPhee is a master of moving so slick between subjects.. The Mississippi River was fascinating , then, the L.A. rock slides are something I never heard of and I have lived here all my life. Great book, highly recommend . McPhee has made me want to know how and when the BIG MOVES take place. Will be watching..

This book is a great example of how to make non-fiction as interesting as any good novel. McPhee goes into enough detail to make his topics understandable, yet keeps it interesting--most of the time. Without getting heavy-handed, he conveys a healthy doubt about whether humanity can ever really control nature, vividly showing people's temporary successes and the natural consequences.

McPhee has a distinctly episodic writing style, full of short sentences and rapid switches between topics. This makes him a fast read, but the lack of focus precluded a really systematic presentation of any of the three situations he sketches. Instead, we get in essence a series of overlapping (and consequently sometimes redundant) anecdotes. This is fun, particularly with some chapparal-dry humor added in, but it won't leave you with much in the way of deep insights. As I noted before, a bibliography or at least a Further Reading section would also have been very welcome, as would some maps and other illustrations.

Of the three sketches, I most enjoyed "Cooling the Lava", about efforts to stop the flows from a newly-forming volcano off the coast of the Icelandic island of Heimaey in their tracks.

John McPhee is one of my favorite authors and this book is one of his best. I have read it several times and just reread the Iceland chapter after visiting Heimaey in the Westmann Islands during my recent trip to Iceland. This is where in January 1973 a new volcano formed (Eldfell)and erupted for 5 months. The lava, as it began burying the town (400 homes were covered or destroyed)and was about to seal the harbor was stopped by spraying water on it. I can not tell you how dramatic a story this is and the incredible statistics he cites (tons of tephra, amount of water, etc ) and now that I have seen the results of it 30 some years later it is no less amazing. I also got to meet the filmmaker mentioned in the book who has been filming Iceland eruptions for over 30 years. He shows his films at the "Volcano Show" in Reykjavik. If you have any interest in vulcanology (McPhee covers Hawaii and others), but most of all if you just want a great dramatic story of man's attempt to control nature, I definitely recommend this. The chapter on the mudslides and debris flows in California and the catchment basins is also very interesting, but the story of Heimaey will grip you completely.

He gives three in-depth examples of where man is controlling nature. His first example is about the Mississippi & how we've been redirecting its course for decades. He explains in detail the reasons for it & brings home how difficult the job has been. His writing is excellent. He personalized the struggle for me. I really got a feel of it in an interesting factual way.

Though this book of three stories was published in the 1990's, everything he wrote about is still a problem today.
Story 1 - Atchafalaya
Story 2 - Cooling the Lava
Story 3 - Los Angeles Against the Mountains

Story 1 made me feel angry and sad about the Mississippi Delta and the effects of human mismanagement of resources and the futile attempts to control the flow.
Story 2 was difficult to keep my interest because its setting didn't interest me a lot (Iceland & Hawaii)
Story 3 was very compelling; the cycle of fires and heavy rain and mudslides/debris slides is not ever going to abate; people living in the wrong place - hubris

McPhee writes with great detail and with a sense of humor. Excellent writing!

Sono tre bei reportage, scritti bene ma non particolarmente coinvolgenti, a volte ho fatto fatica a continuare. Accumunati dalla stessa struttura narrativa, partono da un personaggio, una famiglia, una storia personale, per poi alzare lo sguardo verso un complesso naturale enorme, nello spazio e nel tempo, come il movimentato delta del Missisipi o l'eruzione di un vulcano islandese. Quindi alla lotta impari, tra noi piccole, ma intelligenti formichine e la mostruosa, cieca, Natura. A volte ci va bene, a volte no. McPhee, da vero americano, rimane cmq affascinato dalla nostra capacità di resistere e andare avanti anche dopo tante battaglie perse. Vogliamo rimanere a dispetto della natura, perchè in fondo ormai è insito in noi, il fatto che la natura possiamo e dobbiamo dominarla. Abbiamo i mezzi e la capacità di dirigere i corsi dei fiumi, la lava dei vulcani, gli smottamenti delle montagne. Quindi, si combatte. Penso sia questo che ci renda così poco sensibili al cambiamento climatico. Abbiamo la hubris di ritenere che qualunque cosa accadrà, saremo sempre in grado di cavarcela.

DNF: boring. I might have read 1/3 of it, then started skipping ahead in hopes that one of the other sections of the book would grab me.

This read like an extremely long National Geographic article. I have nothing against NatGeo, and in fact, that’s probably not a good comparison. NatGeo articles are generally pretty engaging.

I think the larger idea of man-against-nature is compelling, but the book likes to wade into the minutiae and just kind of be there for pages upon pages. Nothing much happens. Progress in the narrative is slow. Ffs, one of the chapters is about changing the flow of a river. I don’t think anyone could make that interesting in writing. Certainly not when the subject of the writing is the actual changing of the river, and not a fully fleshed-out person we can relate to.

Poorly executed, sad to say.

This is 3 long essays on different attempts by humans to control nature.
The first is to keep the Mississippi river from changing where it connects to the Gulf, the second on controlling a newly developed volcano in Iceland and the third on handling landslides in Los Angeles.

The Mississippi story had too many literary references that I think were just there to show off the authors intellectual prowess. While they all would have benefited greatly by having some pictures and diagrams, this one really needed them. I had to look at maps and diagrams on Wikipedia to really follow what was happening.

The Iceland story was amazing. I am visiting Iceland later this year and will see about visiting the areas described here. It also talks about Kilauea on Hawaii which was interesting as it is erupting as I was reading this.

The last one on Los Angeles mountain fires and landslides points up the foolishness of spending many millions of dollars so people can continue to live in an area where they shouldn't be living in the first place.

Very enjoyable book. A friend recommended it at lunch and while we were talking, I ordered a cheap used copy off the Internet. We live in a time of miracles and wonders.

Gosh, John McPhee is an amazing writer. This book looks at three stories of humans trying to fight back against nature by controlling the flow of the Mississippi River, preventing an Icelandic volcano's eruption from engulfing a town and its harbor, and fighting against the San Gabriel Mountains' debris flows, which are attempting to fill in Los Angeles with every big rainstorm. This book was written in the 1980s, but these stories feel tremendously relevant to today.