They have opened new frontiers, founded cities, settled borders, and fed billions of us. They promote life, forge peace, grant power, and capriciously destroy everything in their path. Rivers, more than any road, technology, or political leader, have shaped the course of civilization. And even as they have become increasingly domesticated, they remain a powerful global force, one that is more critical than ever to our future. In Rivers of Power, geographer Laurence C. Smith tells the sweeping story of rivers and how they made us. Rivers, he shows, also shape us in less obvious ways. Beautifully told and expansive in scope, Rivers of Power reveals how and why rivers have so profoundly shaped civilization throughout human history, and examines the importance this vast, arterial power holds for our future.