…Doyle's historical perspective offers a poignant account of how financing the country's water and wastewater systems began at the local level, moved to the federal level, then, following the Reagan Revolution and the pulling back of federal funds, brought us to our current situation.

★ 12/04/2017
Doyle, professor of river science and policy at Duke University, pays tribute to America’s waterways in this worthy history, noting their importance to the country’s development and its basic identity. Covering such topics as trade, politics, and environmentalism, Doyle looks at how the Erie Canal, for example, helped facilitate trade and commerce between the North Atlantic coast and the “burgeoning West.” The “once obscure towns” of Syracuse, Utica, Rochester, and Buffalo developed as “hubs of nineteenth-century manufacturing and industrialization,” while New York City became an entry point for European “immigrants heading toward America’s interior.” Doyle then turns his attention to the Mississippi River and the establishment of levee systems and flood controls along it. His discussions with Mississippi River towboat pilot Donnie Randleman and towboat captain Robert “Howdy” Duty add color and character to the narrative. Doyle rounds out this volume by examining ways in which Americans have altered rivers over the years. Gross and negligent pollution of industrial waterways—one result of which was that the Cuyahoga River in Ohio infamously burned in 1969—would eventually give rise to movements for river conservation and restoration. Doyle tackles the shifts in how America has viewed and used its extensive waterways, producing a comprehensive and enjoyable account. Illus. (Feb.)

"Readers interested in everything from American history to business, engineering, environmental concerns, and canoeing will find Doyle’s work absorbing and educational."

"Brilliantly conceived, The Source is a unique synthesis that recasts American history and flows with the power of unexpected insight."

"In [Doyle’s] telling, rivers become a lens on federalism, energy and conservation—a rolling narrative taking us from George Washington's quest to find a passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ohio River, through decades of levee-building, flood control, water wars and much more."

"The Source is one of those rare books you look up from and see with fresh eyes."

"Move over Cadillac Desert and The Last Oasis; a new classic on American rivers has arrived. One of the world’s leading authorities on hydrology, Martin Doyle shows how rivers have served as the arteries and veins of the United States since the country’s very founding. It is a rich history both impressive and unsettling."

"Just like its topic, The Source flows magnificently from end to end, carving out a story that spans a continent and several centuries. Martin Doyle weaves together a gripping mix of American history, geology, engineering, economics, and politics to show that American rivers are one of the inspirations of the constitution, the connective fabric of our industry, a triggering cause of environmental movements, and a source of power—physical, economic, and political."

"Authoritative.… Even readers with an allergy to learning history will come away with a greater understanding of how rivers have literally made our country."

"Original… [and] poignant."

"An original and thought-provoking exploration of the sinuous course that water has carved through our economic and political landscape."

"In [Doyle’s] telling, rivers become a lens on federalism, energy and conservation—a rolling narrative taking us from George Washington's quest to find a passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ohio River, through decades of levee-building, flood control, water wars and much more."

2017-11-12
A vigorous look at American history through the nation's waterways.In at least some measure, writes Doyle (River Science and Policy/Duke Univ.), federalism was born of an effort to regulate the use of waterways that, in the eastern portion of the country, often lay entirely within individual states: the James, for instance, in Virginia, and the Hudson in New York. In the 18th century, private river companies had formed with "modest ambitions: keeping their river cleared of logs, sandbars, and any other blockages." The newly formed federal government stepped in, placing rivers in the national domain; it's no accident, writes the author, that the U.S. Military Academy was sited alongside a river, since its graduates were trained to be river engineers above all else. Where states retained power, they sometimes governed for the eventuality of a flood, as with the levee districts along the Mississippi in the South. However, when Ronald Reagan's administration made moves to revert power to the states, "this meant putting the impetus back on local and state governments to spend their own money on projects," which was a nonstarter. Doyle links subsequent developments in taxation, environmental policy, energy, and resource management to the management of water, with all its many tangles; as he notes, for example, "fences dividing fields or lines dividing a map; both are intuitive. Dividing water is not so intuitive." Thus, the fight continues over such things as the allocation of the Colorado River or the ownership of the mouth of the Columbia. Doyle is not the first to look at history through the lens of water; Wallace Stegner and Donald Worster, among others, have written signally important books in the field. This book is a comparatively minor entry alongside them but still worthy of a place in any water-centered library.Waste, restoration, and efforts to use a scarce resource wisely: Doyle speaks well to issues that are as pressing today as in the first years of the republic.