Network engineering is not a glamorous profession, and the physical structures of the greatest network ever built lack the grandeur of a hydroelectric dam or a continent-spanning railway.
McPhee spent months trying to understand the centuries of engineering prowess that have gone into trying to control the Mississippi, especially the creation of structures much in the news today, like Old River Control and the Morganza Floodway, which was opened over the weekend to allow floodwaters to course down through the Atchafalaya basin.