Intelligent investigative writing meets experiential journalism in this important look at one of North America’s most voraciously invasive species

Politicians, ecologists, and government wildlife officials are fighting a desperate rearguard action to halt the onward reach of Asian Carp, four troublesome fish now within a handful of miles from entering Lake Michigan. From aquaculture farms in Arkansas to the bayous of Louisiana; from marshlands in Indiana to labs in Minnesota; and from the Illinois River to the streets of Chicago where the last line of defense has been laid to keep Asian carp from reaching the Great Lakes, Overrun takes us on a firsthand journey into the heart of a crisis. Along the way, environmental journalist Andrew Reeves discovers that saving the Great Lakes is only half the challenge. The other is a radical scientific and political shift to rethink how we can bring back our degraded and ignored rivers and waterways and reconsider how we create equilibrium in a shrinking world.

With writing that is both urgent and wildly entertaining, Andrew Reeves traces the carp’s explosive spread throughout North America from an unknown import meant to tackle invasive water weeds to a continental scourge that bulldozes through everything in its path.

Andrew Reeves earned his PhD from the University of Toronto’s Centre for Medieval Studies in 2009 and is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and Political Science at Middle Georgia State University. His research covers how laypeople and lowerranked clergy interacted in the later Middle Ages. His 2015 book, Religious Education in Thirteenth- Century England: The Creed and Articles of Faith (Brill, 2015), shows how clergy taught the basics of Christian doctrine to laypeople.

Andrew Reeves' profile page

• Long-listed, RBC Taylor Prize

“A thorough look at an important — and multifaceted — topic.” — Publishers Weekly

“A gracefully composed exemplar of the human species’ disputatious struggle to protect its own habitat while those of so many other species are disappearing or shifting.” — Wall Street Journal

“With a journalist’s critical eye and storytelling ability . . . Overrun is more than an engaging story about nuisance fish. This eye-opening book demonstrates the interrelationship of species, the climate, and the environment.” — Foreword Reviews

“Overall, Overrun presents a saga of human short-sightedness, not evil . . . And so it’s here,  at the intersection of science, politics, economics and the ecology of Asian carp in North America, that we can discover how a single unwelcome “sh has changed how we think about invasive species, binational and bipartisan cooperation on the environment and the fate of our rivers and Great Lakes.” — MinnPost

“Overrun is a whip-smart romp through the dystopian history of Asian carp, that wrecking ball of aquatic ecosystems in North America. But in telling it, Reeves charts a sustainable future for the waterways that connect all of us on the continent. An environmental writer as good as Reeves gives me hope.” — Harry Thurston, winner of the Lane Anderson Award for Excellence in Canadian Science Writing and the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award