Introduction

This chapter introduces the book as a multidisciplinary examination of two Asian Highland river systems: the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra and Yangzi rivers. It outlines the book’s primary aim: to show how longer-than-human, deep-time, and generational views suggest multiple futures for the rivers rather than the locked-in degradation that short-term, legacy modernist, and extractive thinking produces for them. It describes our “braided river” approach to research, which slows the analytical process down by placing disciplines in conversation with each other yet does not demand a synthesis from its component disciplinary streams. It then introduces the book’s three main research channels: Planetary, Social, and Regulated Rivers. And it provides a general indication to the reader of how to approach and read the book.