The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (Critical Issue Book) [Paperback]

Richard White (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0809015838 | ISBN-13: 978-0809015832 | Publication Date: January 31, 1996

The Hill and Wang Critical Issues Series: concise, affordable works on pivotal topics in American history, society, and politics.

In this pioneering study, White explores the relationship between the natural history of the Columbia River and the human history of the Pacific Northwest for both whites and Native Americans. He concentrates on what brings humans and the river together: not only the physical space of the region but also, and primarily, energy and work. For working with the river has been central to Pacific Northwesterners' competing ways of life. It is in this way that White comes to view the Columbia River as an organic machine--with conflicting human and natural claims--and to show that whatever separation exists between humans and nature exists to be crossed.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Award-winning author White (history, Univ. of Washington) offers a powerful and exploratory look into the relationship between people and nature in the Pacific Northwest. The result is an alarming vision of the history of life along the Columbia River. By examining both Indian and white interactions, the author molds a new environmentalism that incorporates pollution, inorganic naturalness, and environmental destruction, as well as a certain energy and mysticism. The relationship between the Columbia River and the people in its sweep can be symbolized by the "organic machine." According to White, this machine incorporates all living creatures in the environment, each with a "social claim to their part of the machine." White approaches the conflict between humanity and nature earlier noted by minds such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Lewis Mumford with passion, optimism, emotion, and intelligence, connecting the reader on a variety of levels. Recommended for most libraries.
Vicki L. Toy Smith, Univ. of Nevada, Reno
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Prizewinning University of Washington historian White's "organic machine" is the Columbia River and its tributaries: along this energy powerhouse, Native American fishermen and eastern adventurers, spawning salmon and man-made machines--from gill nets and fish wheels to hydroelectric dams and Hanford Engineer Works--came together to forge "a new energy regime, a new geography, and a new relationship between human labor and the energy of nature." Viewing human history and natural history as part of the same narrative, not as parallel stories, White argues "it is our work that ultimately links us, for better or worse, to nature." The Organic Machine focuses on that linkage to illuminate both the conflicting human claims and constructions that have "disassembled" the mighty river over the decades and the "larger organic cycles beyond [human] control" to which the river system remains tied. White urges that it is this mixture of organic and human-made that defines both the river's history and its current reality. Includes a bibliographical essay but no footnotes; an annotated version is in the University of Washington Library's Special Collections. Mary Carroll --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Hill and Wang (January 31, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809015838
• ISBN-13: 978-0809015832
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #54,102 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #47 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Earth Sciences > Rivers

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars brilliant but dispassionate, November 13, 2002

By 

S. N. Kras "Stefan Kras" (Den Haag Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (Critical Issue Book) (Paperback)

Richard White's "Organic Machine" is a neat display of erudition and intelligence. Through the prism of the Columbia river, the book delves into the difficult relations between native Americans and white settlers. It shows the stronghold an aluminum multinational on local economy and politics. It informs us about the megalomania of giant state bureaucracies. It analyses the emergence and subsequent (enormously expensive) blunders in managing nuclear reactors, followed by the immense human and economic costs. It explores the society's attitudes to endangered species such as salmon, threatened with extinction because of technical progress. It shows us the power and resilience of a large river, unwilling to yield to the numerous dams built during the last 100 years.

The Organic Machine compares to John Barry's "Rising Tide", which treated the Mississippi's history as a classic epic in 400+ pages. "Rising Tide" is a compelling page-turner, not at all times sharp in its analysis, but centered around brilliantly narrated biographies and societal sketches. The Columbia's history has been just as rich, but Richard White took a totally different approach to explain the river. All elements which made Rising Tide such a fun read are there, and more. But Richard White chose to strip the story to the bone. What remains is 112 pages of crisp, flawless analysis. "Organic Machine" is very smart, but I thought the author was too dispassionate. Every page in this book screams for more illustrative anecdotes, it should have been at least three times its actual size.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best environmental history book to date?, October 23, 2000

By 

j.e.c. (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (Critical Issue Book) (Paperback)

Hands down the best history book written in English on a river. It rivals William Cronon's "Nature's Metropolis" as the best environmental history book I've read. Anyone who spends time near/on rivers (especially the Columbia) will appreciate this book. White tells a fascinating, compact story (~100 pages) that will force the consciencious reader to rethink his/her relationship with rivers as a source of energy. The book is also a lesson in form and style.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brief and Brilliant, October 30, 2007

By 

Lowry C. Pei (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (Critical Issue Book) (Paperback)

The Organic Machine is an ideal example of what great scholarship should produce. It's a short, beautifully written, passionate history of what we human beings have made of the Columbia River in the time since white people came to the Northwest. It is driven by an environmentalism founded on the understanding that man is not separate from nature and never can be. The protagonist of this book is the salmon -- a creature to whom we have done no favors by transforming the Columbia -- yet man is not the villain of the piece. This book is written, as White says, "to understand rather than denounce." The profound depth of White's scholarship is made clear in the bibliographic essay that follows the text; the text itself makes use of massive learning in a graceful and accessible style. Anyone who cares about our relationship with the natural world, and who wants to think about it with some subtlety and historical grounding, should read this book. They don't come any better.