ePub Spies; Scandals and Sultans: Istanbul in the Twilight of the Ottoman Empire by From Brand: Rowman Littlefield Publishers in History

Description

The Everglades was once reviled as a liquid wasteland; and Americans dreamed of draining it. Now it is revered as a national treasure; and Americans have launched the largest environmental project in history to try to save it.The Swamp is the stunning story of the destruction and possible resurrection of the Everglades; the saga of man's abuse of nature in southern Florida and his unprecedented efforts to make amends. Michael Grunwald; a prize-winning national reporter for The Washington Post; takes readers on a riveting journey from the Ice Ages to the present; illuminating the natural; social and political history of one of America's most beguiling but least understood patches of land. The Everglades was America's last frontier; a wild country long after the West was won. Grunwald chronicles how a series of visionaries tried to drain and “reclaim” it; and how Mother Nature refused to bend to their will; in the most harrowing tale; a 1928 hurricane drowned 2;500 people in the Everglades. But the Army Corps of Engineers finally tamed the beast with levees and canals; converting half the Everglades into sprawling suburbs and sugar plantations. And though the southern Everglades was preserved as a national park; it soon deteriorated into an ecological mess. The River of Grass stopped flowing; and 90 percent of its wading birds vanished. Now America wants its swamp back. Grunwald shows how a new breed of visionaries transformed Everglades politics; producing the $8 billion rescue plan. That plan is already the blueprint for a new worldwide era of ecosystem restoration. And this book is a cautionary tale for that era. Through gripping narrative and dogged reporting; Grunwald shows how the Everglades is still threatened by the same hubris; greed and well-intentioned folly that led to its decline.