A+| A| A-
The More-than-human Brahmaputra
The Unquiet River: A Biography of the Brahmaputra by Arupjyoti Saikia, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019; pp xxxv + 583, `1,195 (hardcover).
The comments of an anonymous reviewer of the earlier draft of this review are duly acknowledged by the author.
In the not-so-distant past, environmental history was considered a feeble subdiscipline of history imploring wider academic attention. Over the past four to five decades, this field has grown so much that even river history—one of its subdisciplines—is now capable of extensive interdisciplinary engagements. The river as a site of rise and fall of civilisations, of agrarian practices, and transportation occupies significant space in historical studies. The distinction of the recent literature on river history lies in its ability to converse with natural, social, and human sciences allowing engagement with as diverse topics as deep ecology, multispecies interactions, climate change, political imaginations, and state practices. A few recent works on the Indus and the Ganga stand at the forefront of this new era of Asian river history.1 Arupjyoti Saikia’s The Unquiet River: A Biography of the Brahmaputra offers a powerful addition to this fluvial bonanza from the vantage point of the Brahmaputra.
Post-human Assemblages
Dear Reader,
Or
To gain instant access to this article (download).
(Readers in India)
(Readers outside India)
