Rating: 
Summary: And so it flows!
Review: A very nice historical piece that frequently reads like a novel. The history of the Mississippi River over the past two centuries is painstakingly reviewed. On page one, I learned that fully 41% of the continental US is drained by the River! This fact clues the reader that a flood of this body of water is a national event. The author offers a fascinating array of physical information about limnology, flow mechanics, and hydraulics in a readable presentation. I had no idea that the 1927 Flood exerted a significant influence over the election of 1928. The author describes Herbert Hoover as the "great humanitarian" but many disparaging comments he makes about Hoover's character make the use of the epithet seem sarcastic. The author is no great admirer of Hoover but he stands in awe of the Great Mississippi, the "Mother of all Rivers."
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful
Review: I was very pleased with this book. Once I got into it, I simply could not put it down. As someone who grew up on the Arkansas River (my house now backs up to the river) this book gives a much better understanding of the Mississippi River system than anything I've read before. It also shows how the flood and smart politics made a president and made the federal government the world's charity organization.
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Summary: Big River - Big Story
Review: I grew up near the Mississippi and you can't spend as much time on or near it as I did without realizing how it drives the day-to-day lives of those around it. It's not just a body of water but a muddy artery that carries life or death. There is finally a book that does it justice.While some might claim that this is a work waylaid by detail, I strongly disagree. That, in fact, is the beauty of this book because all of those details send out tendrils that eventually start meshing about a third of the way in. Once they do, the pace and energy of this epic tale start building. And for me, it started answering a lot of questions I had had since childhood. I remember my father talking about patrolling a section of levee all night in 1927 looking out for Arkansas dynamiters with orders from the sheriff to shoot to kill if any nighttime boatmen didn't answer his challenge. This book gives those stories a reality that is hard to desctibe. I can remember how the river stage was carried at the top right hand corner of the front page of Memphis papers and was relentlessly discussed. This book explains why this was no idle exercise. I cannot recommend this book enough for anyone interested in why a large part of the South was what it was and is what it is. And, for those who think that they have the South of the early 20th century all figured out, prepare to have your beliefs challenged by some of the surprises offered by this book. And isn't that a pretty good definition of a good book?
Rating: 
Summary: Boring
Review: This book was so boring that I could not stay awake to read the entire book. Just trying to stay concious was enough of a chore much less understanding the book.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down a delightful surprise throughout
Review: Like other reviewers here I loved this book. This tale of the great Mississippi River flood of 1927 touches on so much, like the river itself, race relations, leadership both its failure and success; there's even some hubris in here for the classically inclined. Early in the book, Barry writes of the efforts to tame nature - and the courage and folly it took to do so.In a passage late in the book, you could almost hear the blues being created by the flood. The story connects some of the era's nastier scoundrels, like Sen. Bilbo, to the flood and casts a fascinating spotlight on the Percy family of which Walker Percy, the novelist, is a scion. The Percy's out-Faulkner Faulkner. If I were a teacher I would assign it to a class to show them how exciting history can be.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible Book
Review: Simply put, this is one of the greatest history books that I have ever read. Once I started, I couldn't put it donw until I was finished. Barry is able to relate the 1927 flood to the politics of the entire nation. Rising Tide not only provides an impressive history of the 1927 Mississippi River flood, but also weaves a story so interesting and well writte, it reads like fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Monumental book
Review: This is a fabulous book, more than worthy of its very ambitious title/subtitle. Very clever how Barry focused on the story of the river through the eyes of Eads and Percy. The saga of Eads alone is worth a volume all to itself. Thank you, John Barry.
Rating:
Summary: An important snapshot of a moment in America's history
Review: Barry's book is generally a great read - I've just read it over the course of two days. His writing style is hardly academic though is certainly not light. The book is exhaustively researched (at times maybe a little too exhaustive in its myriad of minutiae) and literally features a cast of thousands. The personal detail was usually welcomed but the number of personalities introduced sometimes made it a task to keep track of each of them, particularly since the story moves back and forth between several major "plots." I couldn't help but think of the presentation as a compelling expansion of the kinds of stories related by Howard Zinn in his _People's History of the United States_, and I found the history illuminating in terms of race relations at the beginning of the 20th century, especially with regard to sharecropping, the KKK, and Hoover-ism. The detailed explanation of flood control tactics (and the politics behind them) scattered throughout was also particularly interesting. Like other reviewers, I also felt the book dropped off a bit once the drama of the actual 1927 flood had been told. Indeed, the whole "how it changed America" idea didn't quite seem to be justified by the narrative - we get a lot of lead-in into Hoover and claims that the U.S. became more agreeable to a larger, more activist Federal government, but in the end there's surprisingly little payoff; I wanted more meat to support the length (and depth) of the Hoover research. How did Hoover's "human engineering" factor into his presidency as a whole? and how did we get to FDR (perhaps a more vivid example of a changed America, given Hoover's post-depression reputation)? These are the questions Barry seems to want to get into, but leaves largely untouched once the flood is over. That flood is obviously the climax of the story, but the final quarter of the book just wasn't as tight as the rest and it seemed to wallow in its own detail. That said, I definately recommend this as great summertime reading (or weekend reading): informative and generally quite entertaining.
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Summary: the best book i've read in years
Review: Picked this book up after the recent PBS/ American Experience documentary based on it. It's far better than that show was, is wonderfully written, is as solidly researched a book as you are likely to find on any subject, and it's as tense as a disaster movie. The author was blessed, of course, with great material: some extraordinary characters, not to mention the Mississippi River itself, and the greatest natural disaster in American history (close to 1 million people flooded out of their homes). He more than does justice to the subject and teaches much about how science should be done, then gets into a very original and provocative-- and well supported by the evidence-- interpretation of race relations and the flood's impact on national politics. As the author says, the story starts out as book of man against nature, and becomes one of man against man. Read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: The Book is worth it just for the first half
Review: The beginning portion about Humphreys, Eads, Ellet is a page turner. Anyone ever frustrated by bureacracy will cheer for Eads as he attempts to save the bridge and his jetties. After this, however, the story starts to sag and was difficult to get through.
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