Charleston County Public Library

Wounded Tigris, a river journey through the cradle of civilization, Leon McCarron

eng

Includes bibliographical references

mapsplatesillustrations

no index present

non fiction

Wounded Tigris

bibliography

1369678677

Leon McCarron

a river journey through the cradle of civilization

For thousands of years, the Tigris has acted as a lung exhaling life into Mesopotamia. Its cycles of flooding created seasons of plenty and seasons of scarcity. Water was once everywhere, from the northern mountains to the southern marshlands. But it is now beginning to falter, becoming clogged and erratic, and the changing climate is bringing environmental instability to the countries that rely on it. During the pandemic, in 2020, Leon McCarron travelled from the source of this great river in the Turkish highlands, through northern Syria, into the heart of Iraq, and all the way to the Persian Gulf, moving downstream through the Cradle of Civilisation. Passing through settlements of the old world - some of which are now industrial hubs - McCarron talks to the inhabitants of cities like Diyarbakir, Mosul, Baghdad, Samarra and Basra, and asks them what it is like to live there now. Today almost 30 million people live in the watershed of the Tigris, but the river faces existential threats on multiple fronts. In Wounded Tigris, McCarron takes the reader on a fascinating journey from source to mouth, whilst also telling the incredible history of the varied lands the Tigris runs through, via encounters with the fascinating people whose own survival is often entwined with that of the river. Accompanied by beautiful photography, it is an unforgettable story told by a master explorer

Prologue: Twin rivers -- Part one: Upper Tigris. Divine roads of the Earth -- You should've seen it -- Holy water -- Newroz -- The business of Keleks -- The water brought them, and sent them away -- Runaway monk -- Land of acronyms -- Fragile existence -- The waterkeeper -- Tsunami -- The boundary -- Part two: Middle Tigris. Hanging gardens of Nineveh -- They came by the bridges -- The river sheikh -- Warning shot -- The Great Zab -- To be a hero -- Honeymooners -- Grandmother's wrinkles -- Submerged -- People's palaces -- Malwiya -- Part three: Lower Tigris. A model of city planning -- Bridge to bridge -- Wireat -- Future youth -- Electro-fishing -- Baptism -- The Marsh Arabs -- Uncertainty -- The final confluence -- Water martyrs -- To the sea

adult