The Rhine: An Eco-biography, 1815-2000 (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)

What an unexpected pleasure. The title of this book caused me to expect some very dry reading, but as I am planning a Rhine river cruise, I thought I'd best tackle the job as their seemed to be no other "biographies" of the Rhine. I thought the history of the Rhine would be a history of geopolitics, war, and other essentially human events. Not so. This book is the story of the river, and the story is told in a way which is both scholarly and engaging. The author is skilled in managing what appears to be a prodigious amount of research which he presents in a style which conveys a warm respect for the life of the river.

Very technical

This is an in-depth chronicle of the re-engineering of the Rhine from its natural form to a polluted, rammed, canal. The Rhine was straightened, used as a dumping place for chemicals and sewage, and lost its ability to sustain living things. Unlike the American west, there is work being done to rehabilitate the Rhine. However, like the American west, the existing dependence of the people on the current situation will not allow it to be restored to the Rhine of the mid 19th century. A well researched book told in a scientific manner stating facts without hysteria.

Very impressive technical history of the Rhine, but not much help if one is just planning a cruise down the river.

This book is not a good choice for an introduction to the Rhine river communities which is what I was looking for. Instead it is a study of the evolution of the river.

Lots of photos and maps

Quite edifying with a good deal of information in historical perspective with surprisingly marked environmental detrimental effects which might, had they been understood in their ramifications, been instructional to lessen the risk of repetition in the U.S and elsewhere. The earliest damage to the environment has been revealed here, some a good 30 or 40 years before full effects of American environmental damage was created, no less experienced.

The book was recommended by Viking Cruises as a way to prepare for a cruise down the Rhine. It is well written, and I am glad I read it, but it went into more detail than I needed. I read the first several chapters completely, then skimmed the rest. I enjoyed my trip down the Rhine much more because I was able to look at my surroundings with a much more informed perspective.

The Rhine is one of the world’s greatest rivers, rich in history and the source of countless legends. It is also one of the most commercially significant waterways and is second only to the Mississippi in the amount of freight traffic it transports.Prior to the 19th century, much of the Rhine was still a wild river following a meandering course through a very wide floodplain while supporting a rich and diverse fish and wildlife population. Things began to change, however, in the early 19th century when engineers undertook to straighten the Rhine and make it easier to navigate. Their work brought improvements: a shorter and more direct channel, a reduction in floods, opening of more land for development, and a reduction in diseases like malaria. Unfortunately, their improvements also brought a number of problems: more flooding downstream, increased pollution and the reduction of the fish and wildlife population. By the 1970s, people were calling the Rhine an canal that was verging on becoming a sewer.Marc Cioc’s book provides an eco-biography of the Rhine from 1815-2000 that explains in a very readable form the changes introduced to the Rhine during these years and the sources of the problems affecting the Rhine. Chapter two begins with an overview of the Rhine and provides a collection of fascinating facts and figures about the river and its tributaries. The chapter then talks about the multi-national Rhine Commission established by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 which focused on modifying the Rhine for economic reasons. Cioc emphasizes the multi-national cooperation needed for agreeing on how to handle the Rhine, cooperation that helped set the stage for further cooperation many years later within the EU.Chapter three continues with a discussion of the actual modifications made to the river. The key figure driving river modifications on the Upper Rhine was a Herr Tulla and Cioc covers his contributions in depth. On the Middle Rhine, the river engineering was driven by Prussia. The Dutch were active in modifying the Rhine’s path to the sea. Particularly interesting were the explanations of the downsides of these modifications particularly with regard to flooding where improvements on the Upper Rhine led to more floods downstream. Also interesting was how the changes in the navigability of the river and the improved technologies of ships led to an explosion of freight transport on the river.The fourth chapter then talks about the mining industries that developed along the Rhine and which had the practice of just dumping their wastewater directly in the Rhine or in one of its tributaries. Industry argued that it was economically acceptable to sacrifice small sections of the river in order to allow them to cheaply dispose of wastes. The Rhine was able to survive this until the volume of mining increased so much that the sacrificial stretches of the river covered the greatest part of the river and its tributaries.The fifth chapter then looks at the chemical industry as well as the paper industry which grew up directly on the banks of the Rhine and its tributaries. Cioc does a particularly good job on this topic. He provides a high-level history of the chemical industry and explains in a very understandable fashion exactly which aspects of each chemical process resulted in what type of pollution. In 1986, the Rhine experienced it’s worst environmental disaster when a Sandoz chemical storage facility in Basel caught on fire. Firefighters were able to put out the fire, but the water from their firehoses drained into the Rhine carrying with them lot of the pesticides and other chemicals that had been in the storage facility. As this chemical mess proceeded downstream it managed to kill off lots of the fish and wildlife population along the river. This disaster at least served as a wake-up call and stimulated people to look at river restoration.Chapter six then talks about the loss of biodiversity explaining which types of changes in the river impact which species. This sets up the discussion in Chapter seven about the restoration efforts that were started in the 1970s and 1980s.This book is not for everyone; however, I found it to be fascinating which is one reason my review is so long. It is a book I could recommend to anyone interested in environmental history. European history, and civil/water engineering.

Well written and organized to convey a lot of information in an interesting way. Provided great context during a visit to the Rhine last year.

Fascinating look at how commerce, war and nature have coalesced in the story of Europe's premier waterway. Much more than the sum of its parts, the book lays out the re-engineering of the Rhine over nearly two centuries. Written in clear and readily assimable prose with little jargon and explanation of technical terms where appropriate. I found this a very interesting read.