Smith takes readers on a tour of the world's great rivers. The result is fascinating, eye-opening, sometimes alarming, and ultimately inspiring.

A tour de force - a narrative as powerful as the rivers he documents. He is up there with Jared Diamond - a storyteller with real craft. From Herodotus musing on the Nile to the dam makers of modern China, this is their story.

This book about rivers is as fascinating as it is beautifully written

Passionate... and infectiously enthusiastic ... an eclectic journey through several millennia.

Instructive and entertaining. Smith's prose is clear and he explains scientific concepts well.

A hymn to hydrology ancient and modern.

With scholarship, literary flair, and a personal touch, Smith takes the reader on a fascinating and surprising voyage of discovery. He also sounds a clarion call for all of us to invest in protecting our rivers as a means of improving our own lives.

How can one write a world history of rivers? Laurence C. Smith triumphantly meets the challenge, fluently comparing the role of rivers in wartime, in trade, in water management, in floods and droughts, and, looking to the future, in a world of rising temperatures.

Engaging, informative, magisterial in its coverage, intimidating in the scope of its command of the material, there's no end to the good things to be said about this book.

Absorbing. Smith is not only an excellent storyteller, he is also perhaps the world's leading scientist using satellites to unlock the secrets of the planet's rivers. His deep understanding will inspire readers to see rivers in wholly new and surprising ways.

Smith demonstrates compellingly and engagingly that rivers have played a key role in the development of nations and, indeed, of humankind itself.

[The Garden Jungle] brings the broader picture into focus…[and] compels the reader to care about every last creepy-crawly.

This book offers hope… the author’s humour and enthusiasm make for an inspiring read… a clear call to action…we are encouraged to get involved in saving the planet, starting outside our own back doors.

Goulson is a warrior. Through this medium, he has the ability to influence and change the course our whole society takes, from individuals to politicians, economists and industrialists.

Dave Goulson is an expert on everything that grows, buzzes, crawls or flies, and we would do well to take his advice when gardening.

[A] fascinating book

Gripping . . . Kate Brown's relentless, tenacious reporting shows that Chernobyl isn't the past at all. Nothing, she makes clear, can stop its radiation from seeping through all attempts to bury the truth, for a long time to come. This deftly written, impassioned, courageous book should make the world think twice about what's at stake when we unleash nuclear reactions.

This engagingly written book reads like a cold war thriller and uncovers the devastating effects of one of the world's worst nuclear disasters.