BFE2 Robert Macfarlane

At the heart of Robert Macfarlane’s perspective-shifting new book is a single idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use but living beings who should be recognised as such in both imagination and law.  Is a River Alive? takes the reader on an exhilarating exploration of the past, present and futures of this urgent concept: to northern Ecuador, where a cloud-forest and its rivers are threatened by goldmining, to the wounded waterways of southern India, and to north-eastern Quebec, where a spectacular wild river is being defended from death by damming in a river-rights campaign.

Robert Macfarlane is internationally known for his writing on nature, people, and place. His bestselling books, including Underland, Landmarks, The Old Ways, and The Wild Places have been translated into over thirty languages. He has written for film, music, theatre, and radio, has collaborated with the artist Jackie Morris on The Lost Words and The Lost Spells and with the musicians Cosmo Sheldrake, Julie Fowlis and Johnny Flynn with whom he has released two albums, Lost In The Cedar Wood and The Moon Also Rises. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.