A dam tears at all the interconnected webs of river valley…

I could weep for a river-valley, and I have. But for a country? Oh man, I don't know.

— Arundhati Roy

“Underlying many aspects of water development is a myth: the myth that we must have more.”

— Tim Palmer

“In the 1940s dams were synonymous with progress, and the rivers were to be conquered with the fervour of a pioneer wielding an axe.”

— Tim Palmer

“A dam is monumentally static; it tries to bring a river under control, to regulate its seasonal pattern of floods and low flow.”

— Patrick McCully

“Dams also tend to be built in remote areas which are the last refuge for species that have been displaced by development in other…

— Patrick McCully

For anyone inclined to caricature environmental history as 'environmental determinism,' the contrasting histories of the Dominican Republic and Haiti provide a useful antidote. Yes,…

— Jared Diamond

Environmental history was . . . born out of a moral purpose, with strong political commitments behind it, but also became, as it matured,…

— Donald Worster

“During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a practical knowledge of the construction of small lakes was part of the equipment of most countrymen. Many…

— Elisabeth Beazley

Environmental history fit[s] into the framework of New Left history. [It is] history "from the bottom up," except that here the exploited element [is]…

— Roderick Nash

We may be entering a new phase of history, a time when we begin to rediscover . . . the traditional teaching that power…

— Donald Worster

“By what peculiar twist of perception, I wondered, had I managed to see the plowed fields and second-growth forests of southern Wisconsin—a landscape of…

— William Cronon

Environmental history... refer[s] to the past contact of man with his total habitat. . . . The environmental historian like the ecologist [s]hould think…

— Roderick Nash

“Resources, waterways, and climatic zones loom so large in their writings that one can almost forget that people have something to do with the…

— William Cronon

“It is a country to breed mystical people, egocentric people, perhaps poetic people. But not humble ones…Puny you may feel there, and vulnerable, but…

— Wallace Stegner

“Born of antimodern sentiment, the summer camp was ultimately a modern phenomenon, a "therapeutic space" as much dependent on the city, the factory, and…

— Sharon Wall