In the tradition of John McPhee's classics about where nature and mankind meet, Holding Back the River introduces readers to the Americans who carry on the eternal battle against the savage appetites of our great rivers.
The Mississippi. The Missouri. The Ohio. America's great rivers are as integral to this country as the many states named after them. We depend on rivers for drinking water; for nourishing our crops; for cheap bulk transportation; for hydroelectric power and more. But these benefits don't come freely-Americans have labored for generations to tame the forces of nature, and we still haven't won. The real story of the country's waterways is the story of the men and women fighting to harness them.

Tyler J. Kelley spent two years traveling across America's heartland, getting to know the citizens of so-called "fly over country" whose lives and livelihoods rely on these tenuously tamed streams. In Holding Back the River, Kelley...