Muddy Thinking: An Immersive Account of Urban Reclamation
- Ned Randolph
- Jan 7
- 1 min read
by Mallika Sardeshpande, mallika.sadeshpande@gmail.com
Muddy thinking in the Mississippi River Delta starts off as a bold endeavour to tell the story of a river delta through mud. Not the water, not the land, but the mud. The book is, per the introduction, a culmination of years of undergraduate and graduate work by the author. This makes the prose dense with detail in some places, but that’s par for the course when you’re paddling in the world’s fourth-largest river catchment. There is not a word wasted, however, as the opening pages succinctly summarise the nature and extent of the social-ecological system the book will delve upon, in all its brazenness. This includes a look at the archaeology, engineering, geology, history, and political ecology of the Mississippi River Delta. If that sounds like a lot, it is, and the author handles the complexity and intersections with flair. Much of the happenings in the book centre around the city of New Orleans, making it a valuable reflection on urban ecology
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