Book Critique On The Swamp By Michael Grunwald

951 Words4 Pages
The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise Book Critique Following my venture into the Florida Everglades, I read the book The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise by Michael Grunwald. I chose to read this book because as the title indicated, it went into detail about what has happened to the Everglades over time. I think that this book was a good companion to the course because it covers both the history and ecology of the Glades in a well-researched and well-written manner that also held my interest. The Swamp covers all of the major events to have ever occurred in the Everglades – the formation of Florida itself and then the Everglades thousands of years ago, the expansion of a multitude of prehistoric species, introduction of mankind, the life of the native peoples, the introduction of European settlers and the wars and battles that inevitably ensued, the many attempts to make the Everglades “useful” that resulted in extreme destruction, and finally what is being done to clean up the environmental mess in Glades today. This book is not only informative, but also keeps the reader engaged in something that can be a somewhat overwhelming subject matter. Even though there was a vast amount of information in this book, it didn’t get boring to me because of Grunwald’s eloquent and often humorous style of writing that still conveyed the devastating injustice in the Everglades. Although I was already familiar with the tragedies and destruction of the Everglades, that was one thing that continued to amaze me over and over again throughout the book. To me, it seems to be that there is no end in sight to the abuse of the Everglades –although this of course is not true. I particularly enjoyed the metaphor Grunwald uses in The Swamp to describe the current state of the Glades: the Everglades is a very ill patient on the

More about Book Critique On The Swamp By Michael Grunwald

Open Document