40 pages • 1 hour read
Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future
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Summary and Study Guide
Overview
Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future (2021) is a nonfiction book by the Pulitzer-Prize winning American author Elizabeth Kolbert, who is also a staff writer at The New Yorker. In three sections, the book chronicles how humanity has altered the planet’s landscapes, biodiversity, and atmosphere for the worse. It also details how attempts to mitigate the impacts of those alterations are themselves fraught with potential pitfalls. Upon release, the book was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Writing and named one of the best books of the year by Esquire and Publisher’s Weekly, and became a national bestseller.
Summary
The book’s first section opens with a meditation on the metaphoric potential of rivers, which authors ranging from Mark Twain to Heraclitus have used to represent hidden meanings, destiny, and change.
Kolbert then describes the modification of the Chicago River, which underwent a major change in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the construction of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. The Canal reversed the flow of the river so that waste from the city of Chicago would flow not into Lake Michigan—its drinking water supply—but in the opposite direction, toward the Mississippi River and ultimately, the Gulf of Mexico: “a textbook example of what used to be called, without Unlock all 40 pages of this Study Guide Plus, gain access to 8,900+ more expert-written Study Guides. Including features:
Related Titles
By Elizabeth Kolbert
