Includes bibliographical references (p. 275-280) and index.

The wondrous roll of American rivers' names! Because of the rivers' significance, because of their power to shape human endeavor and to stimulate creativity, U.S. history can quite properly be told through them. On the Ohio River in 1817, a literate traveler named Morris Birkbech saw that connection; he sensed the end of one historical age and the beginning of another when he noted the heavy pulsing of the waterborne traffic. He exclaimed, "Old America seems to be breaking up and moving westward!" In the twentieth century, rivers have continued to be at the center of American concerns, as agriculturalists and dam builders contend with shippers and environmentalists. Within the pages of this exciting and insightful book, well-known historian Russell Bourne takes readers on a journey through time and place, to the rivers that gave life to our nation and to the communities that flourished along their banks. - Jacket.