The Devil and the Disappearing Sea: A True Story About the Aral Sea Catastrophe [Hardcover]

Rob Ferguson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 10, 2005

Set among the ruins of the Soviet empire, this darkly comic true-crime thriller involves environmental disaster, international intrigue, and an unsolved murder. In January 2000, Rob Ferguson went to Uzbekistan to work on a project designed to save the shrinking Aral Sea. By the time he left a year later, he was under suspicion for murder, and the project had achieved almost nothing: once the world's third largest lake, researchers warn the Aral may be gone by 2020. The Devil and the Disappearing Sea is the true story of a well-meaning man who travels to one the earth's poorest regions in the hopes of staving off an environmental tragedy. Instead, he encounters corrupt officials, bumbling bureaucrats, anti-Western hostility, and a slew of insurmountable problems. As the project grinds to a halt, only the ancient cities, friendly people, and a sharp sense of humor keep Ferguson on the right side of sanity.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The pith of Ferguson's fascinating debut—a hybrid of sightseeing travelogue, political history lesson, dire ecological warning and unsolved murder mystery—is that the Aral Sea, once the fourth-largest inland body of water on Earth, is shrinking fast. As of a couple of years ago, the sea, which is near five politically volatile Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan), had dwindled to one-fifth its 1960 size. Estimates are that it will completely evaporate by 2020, done in by decades of inept agricultural planning, gross water mismanagement and, more recently, wasteful nongovernmental organization funding, corrupt bureaucratic infighting and intractable nationalism. In 2000, communications specialist Ferguson came to the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea as the determined head of a Public Awareness Team, partially funded by the World Bank, that was intended to educate the region's populace about water conservation. He left a year later, overwhelmed by ineffectual oversight and anti-Western hostility—and accused of a murder he couldn't possibly have committed. His wry account of a turbulent year clearly articulates the tragic consequences of what he now deems inevitable failure—millions of acres of arable land reduced to poisoned, salty plains—with skilled reporting and detail-rich writing. Readers will finish the book knowing with certainty why the Aral Sea disaster has been described as a slow-motion Chernobyl. (May)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 270 pages
• Publisher: Raincoast Books (April 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1551925990
• ISBN-13: 978-1551925998
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,237,956 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating story, well-constucted and believable, April 5, 2004

By 

RogerS (Calgary, Alberta Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Devil and the Disappearing Sea: A True Story About the Aral Sea Catastrophe (Hardcover)

A well-written account of one Canadian's attempt to cut through the left-over soviet-style bureaucracies of five Central Asian countries. Ferguson was employed by the World Bank to develop a PR strategy to convince wasteful water users on the Aral Sea's two main feeder rivers to change their practises, which are dooming the once-massive inland sea to eventual disappearance. However, his project is locally headed by the man who was originally responsible for the Soviet's collosal irrigation schemes that caused the problem. The book is an entertaining, and suspenseful, account of the intricate scheming and nationalist jockeying amongst the nnumerable teams and factions trying to either save or undermine the whole PR project, while skimming off as much of the project money as they can. The struggle finally results in a murder which forces Ferguson to flee the region. Ferguson gives lively descriptions of the character of the people he works with, or against, as well as providing a wry historical and travel commentary for the whole region. His text is filled with verbatim dialogue and he uses no fictional names. The whole account is very believable, and completely damning to the autocratic regimes that rule the five countries where he worked. After this book, it is unlikely Ferguson will be visiting Central Asia again any time soon.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars intriguing and original book!, October 26, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Devil and the Disappearing Sea: A True Story About the Aral Sea Catastrophe (Hardcover)

Not long ago I would have had to think about just where in the world the Aral Sea was and why I should care. Not a fan of serious works on the destruction of earth's landforms at the hands of humans - they make me feel guilty - I wasn't sure that this book was for me. But what a surprise. I was drawn in immediately to this tale of corruption in central Asia. Ferguson can write - think of a mix of Le Carre, Bill Bryson and Wade Davis. He is a natural storyteller with a gift for showing us both comedy and tragedy, the fools, the innocents and the villains. Himself an innocent, Ferguson lands in Tashkent ready to play his role to help 'save the Aral Sea.' On a year's contract to co-ordinate a public awareness program, funded by the World Bank and managed by a PR company in France, he no sooner finds an office and an apartment than the games begin.

Mr. G, the villain, is a scary guy and Tashkent feels like lonely post for a foreign aid specialist from Canada. Ferguson writes with just the right mixture of humility, wit and bravado - we can really believe that we are there with him. He has a fascinating story to tell - one filled with mystery and intrigue, and set in exotic places - Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Samarkand. But there is nothing exotic about the Soviet landscapes imposed upon the cities and countryside that Ferguson visits or his role as suspect in the messy murder of an attractive office manager.

I learned something about the Aral Sea and its plight from this book. I even learned a little about foreign aid, how it is spent and why - and who sometimes ends up with the money. But what makes this book so good is Ferguson's affection for the places he visits and the people he meets there. He also has the healthy cynicism of one that knows that the world's great ecological disasters are not going to be corrected by good intentions alone. He at once informs and entertains. I hope that he has another book in the works.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Water Water Nowhere, September 23, 2005

By 

doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Devil and the Disappearing Sea: A True Story About the Aral Sea Catastrophe (Hardcover)

There is a hideous catastrophe going on with the Aral Sea in the former Soviet Union, as what was once the fourth largest lake in the world has been shrinking and is expected to disappear completely in the coming decades. The main culprits are uncontrolled water use, inefficient Soviet irrigation schemes that deplete the nearby rivers, and grand schemes to turn the surrounding desert into an agricultural powerhouse. The most recent problem is bickering between the five newly independent Central Asian Republics that occupy the Aral Sea basin and use its water. Rob Ferguson was involved in an unsuccessful international aid project to change the attitudes of the region's peoples about water use, and to rally public support for saving the sea. Here Ferguson describes the horrendous politics that he and the foreign consultants faced in Central Asia, being subjected to stifling bureaucracy, office politics, infighting, and influence peddling that doomed the project to failure. Short-term political squabbles basically overwhelmed anyone's concern about the long-term environmental catastrophe

Ferguson mostly sticks with the drama of the office politics, and while this offers some insight into the cultures of Central Asian people and the horrors of leftover Soviet-style bureaucracy, he mostly under-reports on the sea and its larger ecological issues himself. I was also a bit turned off by Ferguson's running condemnation (sometimes verging on character assassination) of the higher bureaucrats who stifled his efforts, and especially a woman associated with the project who was murdered, only to offhandedly give them credit in the acknowledgments. There are lessons to be found in Ferguson's focus on the cultural and political weaknesses of the region that will forever stifle progress on the issue. But Ferguson's report wastes much of its potential as a powerful magnum opus on water politics and the looming disaster faced by regular people throughout Central Asia. [~doomsdayer520~]