Well, here we are, one week away from the official publication of The Great River. I’ve already started recording podcast interviews, and a few questions have come up repeatedly.
One is, basically, what’s the sale pitch? Why should anyone care about this river—especially people who might not live on its banks? The first few times I answered this, I talked about how the Mississippi River turned America into what it is: this vast and fertile watershed, and this network of waterways linking the territory, helped unleash an empire. Eventually, though, I started talking about the future. Climate change means chaos, but the Mississippi River has always been chaos. If we want to know how to live in the future, it makes sense to pay attention to how people survived along this river for thousands of years.
The other big question: What do you want people to take away from this book? And that one’s easy. I want you to get to know the river—and hopefully love it.
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