The Swamp

The Swamp is the story of the destruction of the Everglades, the saga of man's abuse of nature in southern Florida and his unprecedented efforts to make amends. Michael Grunwald, a prize-winning national reporter for The Washington Post, takes readers on a riveting journey from the Ice Ages to the present, illuminating the natural, social and political history of one of America's most beguiling but least understood patches of land.

The Everglades was America's last frontier, a wild country long after the West was won. Grunwald chronicles how a series of visionaries tried to drain and “reclaim” it, and how Mother Nature refused to bend to their will. The Army Corps of Engineers finally tamed the beast with levees and canals, converting half the Everglades into sprawling suburbs and sugar plantations. And though the southern Everglades was preserved as a national park, it soon deteriorated into an ecological mess. The River of Grass stopped flowing and 90 percent of its wading birds vanished.

America is waking up to what it's lost. Grunwald traces how a new generation of visionaries reshaped Everglades politics, culminating in an $8 billion rescue plan that now serves as a global model for ecosystem restoration. Yet his account is also a cautionary tale: the Everglades remains vulnerable to the same mix of hubris, greed, and misguided good intentions that fueled its decline.

For those who want to learn more or get involved, The Everglades Foundation—one of our 1% for the Planet non profit partners—is leading critical work to protect and restore this fragile ecosystem.

Paperback and 442 pages.