The UMRA Book Club took a deep dive into the Mississippi River for its June 2025 meeting. The dive was orchestrated by Boyce Upholt through his 2024 book The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi (W. W. Norton & Company). The book is an ambitious take on the geological, hydrological, ecological, sociological, political, and historical story of the “mighty Mississippi.” 

Upholt is a journalist, essayist, and nature critic by profession. He comes by his river knowledge having canoed more than 1,000 miles of the lower Mississippi River and having interviewed countless people living on or near the river, including engineers who helped shape the flow of the river, and politicians who create policy impacting the river. Upholt weaves those interviews and observations throughout the book.

Rich descriptions

I crossed the Mississippi on the Washington Avenue Bridge almost daily for years, working on the West Bank of the University. I wanted to know more about this waterway that stretches for 2,340 miles through 10 states, and serves as a watershed for more than 40 percent of the continental United States. Not having an engineering or hydrology background, some of the technical detail Upholt provides was beyond my comprehension. That said, the book rewarded with rich descriptions of the pre- and post-European settlers and their approach to the river. 

Indigenous populations, who built amazing cities and civilizations on the banks of the lower Mississippi, viewed and responded to the river with awe and respect. European settlers, pushing ever westward after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, saw the river as a geological feature to be tamed and conquered.

Upholt’s book disappointed some UMRA Book Club members because of his almost total focus on the lower Mississippi, and many of us found the technical and engineering details not well described for the layperson. One member was disappointed in the limited attention given to the chemical pollution and degradation of the river. All of us, however, agreed that Upholt’s book provided a storehouse of information about the history and influence of the Mississippi.

—Jim Lewis, UMRA Book Club I