The following review originally appeared in The Southeastern Librarian, Vol. 52, No. 1 (Spring 2004), p. 45.

This is the story of a relationship. Like many relationships, it is complex, multi-faceted, and continually changing and evolving. It functions smoothly for years, then becomes troubled before settling down again. Conflicts may be resolved in favor of one party or the other, but each has unique needs and compromise may be difficult. The relationship chronicled here is that of the Mississippi River and the city of New Orleans, emphasizing the waterfront, a public space where the two are in constant juxtaposition and "where people interact with urban nature" (p. 10).

In A River and Its City, Ari Kelman, assistant professor of history at the University of Denver, explains the reciprocal nature of this relationship and describes how competing interests have vied to control the waterfront where river and city meet. After an introduction covering the evolution of the Mississippi and the founding of New Orleans, Kelman focuses on six critical events in the relationship: the batture controversy, a land-use dispute that changed the public character of the riverfront by opening it to commercial development; the advent of "artifice" (now called technology), especially steamboats and the wharves necessary to accommodate therm; the arrival of an unwelcome immigrant--yellow fever--and its impact on the riverfront, where the 1853 epidemic centered; the roles postbellum railroads and of man-made barriers that distanced the city from its river; the devastating flood of 1927 and measures taken to ensure that never again would the Mississippi fill New Orleans with water; and, finally, the aborted efforts to construct an elevated riverfront expressway that would separate the river from its city. Examining these episodes leads to the conclusion that "nature and public space are more complicated and resilient than we typically assume." Represented by the Mississippi River and the city of New Orleans, "the two are often intertwined, often inextricably so" (p. 221).

"To understand the ties between river and city, [Kelman] turned to where New Orleans and the Mississippi collide, where the urban meets what has been called the natural--the riverfront" (p. 7 on the author's Ph.D. dissertation, A River and Its City illuminates how, and by whom, the riverfront has been shaped physically and culturally. The result is a perceptive, instructive, and engaging environmental history of what has happened at the water's edge and the impact of those events. It is a cautionary tale, offering insights as to how a city should treat its river.