"If fresh water is a treasure, the Great Lakes are the mother lode. No bodies of water can compare to them. Superior is the largest lake on earth, and the five lakes together contain a fifth of the world's supply of standing fresh water.

Their ten thousand miles of shoreline bound seven states and a Canadian province and are longer than the entire Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States; their surface area is greater than New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New hampshire, and Rhode Island combined. People who have never visited them - who have never seen a squall roar across Superior or the horizon stretching unbroken across Michigan or Huron - have no idea how big they are. They are so vast that they dominate much of the geography, climate, and history of North America.

In one way or another, they affect the lives of tens of millions of people." "The Living Great Lakes is a complete book written about the history, nature, and science of these remarkable lakes at the heart of North America. From the geological forces that formed them, to the industrial atrocities that nearly destroyed them, to the greatest environmental success stories of our time, the lakes are portrayed in all their complexity."--BOOK JACKET.