“Archer uses detailed scholarship to trace the people, ecology, and cultural influences of this ‘river of many faces, one that enjoys a gluttonous feast of water or no water at all.’”—True West
“The research by Archer is outstanding, and she brings forth history and ideas that have not been published. It will teach much about the Brazos River.”—Mexia Daily News
“Archer’s book is a balanced, comprehensive environmental history of the Brazos River. . . . A nuanced, compassionate, and intelligent analysis of one of the most important waterways in Texas history. . . . Highly recommended.”—Choice
“An engaging and much needed tale of this deep and pervasive frustration along a Texas river.”—Southwestern Historical Quarterly
“The primary strength of Unruly Waters is its comprehensive accounting of a multitude of riparian development plans, both successful and failed. . . . This approach lays bare the remarkable number of development projects and proposals that were attempted to control a single river.”—Journal of American History
“One of the real strengths and most fascinating aspects of Unruly Waters is the wide variety of sources used to trace out not only the construction of improvements but also the various ways people conceived of the river, their relationship to it, and their hopes for a future built on controlling it.”—Journal of Southern History
“People of the Brazos River Valley have tried to make the river navigable, dam it for flood control, and supplement its flow to fend off times of drought. Archer brilliantly shows why an unyielding Brazos River Valley frustrated nearly all of these technocratic drives.”—James Sherow, editor of A Sense of the American West: An Environmental History Anthology
“In this deeply researched study of the Brazos River, Kenna Lang Archer provocatively challenges Americans’ technocratic faith in their ability to manage nature. A muddled cultural identity (the Brazos was neither fully southern nor fully western), escalating costs, contested political ambitions, and the riverine geology undermined human efforts to systematically develop the full length of the river and contributed to persistent cycles of flood and drought. Unruly Waters is compelling environmental history.”—Kathleen A. Brosnan, author of Encyclopedia of American Environmental History
“An engaging and well-researched study of an important river in an important state. California has the San Joaquín, Massachusetts has the Merrimack, and Texas has the Brazos. And now the Brazos has its historian.”—Christopher Morris, author of The Big Muddy: An Environmental History of the Mississippi and Its People from Hernando de Soto to Hurricane Katrina
