Well, if you have read my reviews, you know my middle-class connection to the New Yorker and its writers. The majority of my favorites wrote for the magazine (or currently write for it) and I assume this has to do with my teen discovery of the Algonquin Circle and its writers, and their politics and way of life.
So, no surprise that John McPhee is another favorite..

I think I have read all of his books, and this one is obviously dear to my brain and heart, as it does an admirable job explaining the relationship of the Atchafalaya and the Mississippi rivers, and the future of regions that bend nature to its control.

You'll see my review of John Barry's Rising Tide in my list which to me is the best work on the control of the Mississippi River.
So read that if you want to know what's happening in the middle of the country (and remind yourself why New Orleans must exist on one level- to maintain control and use of the river. You're welcome.)

And then take time to learn about the Atchafalaya Basin. In order to understand what the life of the Mississippi is about, you have to understand its sister, the Atchafalaya River. Our state IS more than New Orleans; it's a system of waterways and sustainable entrepreneurs that use the waterways to supply the shipping and the fisheries that sustain much of the entire U.S.

McPhee is credited as one of the first authors writing creative nonfiction. Thank God for that, because prior too, too much nonfiction was like an encyclopedia entry, long-winded, dryer than a pop-corn fart and often, painful to wade through, as reading fact after fact after fact is difficult. Thanks to McPhee and his ilk, nonfiction has some amazing writers telling interesting stories with the flow of narrative fiction, drawing the reader in as opposed to stuffing them full of trivia they don’t care about and most likely, will never remember.
Having said that, McPhee shares most of his copious research (jewels as well as junk), is a decent storyteller, loves tangents, and like David Foster Wallace, can go on with side topics for pages before coming back to the subject at hand.
The 3 essays in The Control of Nature are interesting, well researched stories about human’s pushing back against natural phenomena, It’s mostly objective, but the inclusion of some of the more absurd aspects within the three topics tips the author’s hand and betrays his stance on the issues, ever so slightly.

His account of people living in the San Gabriel canyons, above Los Angeles, is classic -- and scary. But almost everyone he talked to who lived there found the risks worthwhile. Including the Caltech geologists, who certainly knew what they were getting into.

For a real review, I liked Will Byrnes', https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... . I liked the book more than he did, and found McPhee's portrayals of the geologists & engineers accurate and sympathetic. These aren't colorful personalities, as a rule. (Definite exceptions for some!) But I'm a McPhee fanboy, so YMMV. But his description of the Atchafalaya River "Control" structure vibrating and humming in a flood, seemingly on the verge of failure.... Well, all these years later, it's still doing its job: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Riv...

As are the debris basins above LA, which need periodic cleanout, And the mudslides still happens, sometimes with tragic results. So the book is a little out of date, but well-worth reading. Recommended.

One of the few McPhee books I have made it to the end of, though not for want of trying. Well-divided into three chapters describing in a way that only McPhee seems to be able to accomplish the insanity of man trying/succeeding/failing to control the works of nature, it's a book well worth reading no matter your take on the subject.

very good

This is a collection of three essays about man’s attempts  to control nature. the first chapter is about the lower Mississippi River. The second is about an Icelandic volcano. And the book ends with the San Gabriel mountains around Los Angeles. McPhee writes with intelligence and grace, and has a gift for finding colorful witnesses.  However the chapters are not of equal quality. The first in particular suffers from the book’s lack of photos or diagrams, and the written descriptions of flood control measures and their modes of failure sometimes fall short.

On balance a fine book that many will enjoy, especially if they have spent time in the places McPhee discusses.

A brilliant description of major engineering like the Mississippi control system.

As with all of his books, easy, entertaining, insightful well written.
Very interesting

This is among my favorite McPhee books. Not only does he bring his superb skills at description, characterization and narrative flow to these three linked stories; he manages to set out a subtle subtext without ever being explicit.

In a lot of ways, humanity's history on this planet is a struggle against nature. McPhee focuses here on three instances of modern struggles against geologic forces. River flooding, and in particular the channel of the lower Mississippi River; volcanism, and in particular lava flows in Iceland and Hawaii; and erosion, and in particular mass-wasting in the San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles.

The message in each case is that mankind can triumph - or at least cope - in the short term, but in the long term, the natural forces will prevail. The Mississippi River will change its channel, despite the sometimes arrogant, sometimes defensive efforts of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Lava flows will eventually overwhelm Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland. The naive and credulous Angelenos who build their homes in the steep valleys of the San Gabriels, despite the mudflow management efforts of the County, are eventually doomed. Nature bats last. The rabbit runs for his life; the coyote runs for his supper. The Corps has to succeed each time; the Mississippi only has to succeed once.

McPhee is far too good a writer to ever come out and say this. Instead, he reports what he has seen and what he has been told and lets his narrative convey his points.  That reporting is simply brilliant. As I have argued in other reviews, McPhee is America's greatest living expository writer. This is one of his best books.

Highly recommended.

In The Control of Nature  published in 1989 (paperback) by John McPhee combines three essays from the New Yorker.  Each of the three topics  deals with  the relationship of man to earth processes.  Geologically speaking the processes include in the First Topic fluvial geomorphology and delta mechanics of the Mississippi River.  In the Second Topic  volcanism and the formation of igneous rocks on an island, Heimaey - off the south coast of Iceland,  dominate the discussion.  There is also a small section on Hawaii.  In the Third Topic the focus is on  the slope processes (mass wasting - debris flows) on the rising and eroding San Gabriel Mountains, bounding Los Angeles on the north.

Also, in varying degrees, the essays deal with a spectrum of  difficulty or success which man has had in confronting Nature. McPhee is an honest reporter, he finds facts, often reporting directly the words of people he has interviewed. He focuses on important crucial information. This work is valuable to both layman and expert.  It is not just that he one of the best expository writers to confront geoscience,  but that he had the intellect to recognize what is both important and interesting. In each circumstance he exposes the human history context.  Along the Mississippi this history goes back at least as far as the War of 1812, and the transition from natural levees to the man-created levees which now dominate and shape the problems with living beside the third largest river system in the world. McPhee also  develops the history of the Corp of Engineers with its influential and costly history to present day.

Heimaey history, pronounced "hay may" is short, recent history.  Beginning in February, 1973, a volcanic eruption in the northern Atlantic begins and threatens the lively hood of a prosperous fishing community.  What does man do?  This is, perhaps, an economic success case of Man's control of nature.

In California the canyons and "foot-of-the-mountain" area of the southern San Gabriel Mountains are subject to a spectacular phenomena called debris flows.  Clay, mud, sand, and enormous boulders are carried down slope through canyons in an ugly slurry-like form called debris flows destroying  homes and buildings. Today at great expense to  the taxpayer (state and national) man runs a complicated, high-cost, high-maintenance program to protect man from this natural geologic process.  McPhee's delineation of the history of how we go to this present state of affairs reminds me of the story of the frog in the pot which is brought very slowly to a boil. Would we do it the same way if we had  understood the result or geomorphic process.

In my paperback version of The Control of Nature there is only one figure on page 226,  and a very schematic figure at that.  McPhee flouts the dictum that a "picture is worth a thousand words."  He is able to write in paragraphs that are truly graphic,  taking three-dimensions and making  the visual, verbal.  The rest of us require diagrams and maps.  As I was reading about the conurbation of the Atchafalaya, the Red River, the Mississippi River, the Old River, the old River Control Structure, and the Old River Control Auxiliary,  I eventually had to break down, go out on the INTERNET and find some maps.  It isn't  just that these all have unique locations, but also that the locations evolve and have a history.  For some things words alone will not suffice.  That is this reviewers opinion.

Reviewer Opinion: This is a very important book from a technical geoscience point of view because it successfully integrates human history and geologic process.  From a layman point of view it underlines the importance of geologic process to man.  In my opinion the Core of Engineers is often given a bad rap for merely doing what we have asked them to do.  Our representatives (Congress) not the Corps set the objectives.

I recommend this book.  The Control of Nature deserves to be read and re-read and will not go out of date.

We already know that as a species we have an overinflated belief in our own abilities. The heroes of these incredible battles with the overwhelming forces of nature - water, lava and mountain building (in Los Angeles!) seem to agree that not even they can win.

Truly one of the most amazing books I have ever read.

I spent two years in northern Saudi Arabia as an engineer for the US Army Corps of Engineers, working on an eight-billion-dollar military construction project.  I had met several Corps employees on that project who had worked in the legendary Vicksburg District.  However, I did not comprehend the project's incredible audacity or scale at the time.  It's an organization that is even more incredible than I remembered and one that is challenged to contain the mighty Mississippi in its present riverbed.

The third story, about the phenomenal and periodic disintegration and simultaneous uprising of the mountains around Los Angeles, was equally fascinating.  Chaparral areas drive multi-decadal fires every few decades, which explains the phenomenon.  The fires induce germination and also result in massive runoff from storms that cause runaway debris flows that pulverize houses in the area.  Newcomers learn of the problem when their cars and homes slide down mountains.

Had these stories been nonfiction, they'd have been dismissed as too fantastic to believe.  Reality is genuinely more incredible than most of us can imagine.  A tribute to courage and a must read!