The Swamp

During research for my book, I visited manmade wetlands in south Florida, built to filter farm runoff from the water before it flows into Everglades National Park. These constructed wetlands are thick with alligators, spoonbills, storks, hawks, and other wildlife—but they’re just an echo of the surviving Glades. Now among the most cherished natural areas on Earth, in the settlement era the Everglades was written off as wasted space. Early in the 20th century the northern half of the Everglades was drained and turned into sugar fields. Today polluted runoff from those farms threatens the surviving remnants of the… show more.

As a Florida resident that has crossed the dozens of canals running east to west across the state hundreds of times along Highway 95 without a thought, I was blown away by Michael Grunwald’s The Swamp. It was a history of Florida I really did not know. Even Florida residents don’t quite understand just how destructive man has been to this otherwise natural paradise (which is no longer). Driven by the quest to conquer Nature, immigrants to Florida from Northern states and from around the world, aided by the fantastical but cataclysmic plans of the Army Corps of Engineers… show more.

The Swamp is the stunning story of the destruction and possible resurrection 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, 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.