In The Amazing Crawfish Boat, John Laudun shows a deep affection for the people of Louisiana and a prairie landscape once limited to land-based agriculture that has been transformed over the past century to include rice farming and now aquaculture—that of growing crawfish. This book is focused on one aspect of that transition—the historical development over the past forty years of the amphibious crawfish boat and the loose community of people, including farmers, fabricators, machinists, repair men, and welders, who, knowingly or unwittingly, have played a role in its birth and evolution. In doing so, Laudun’s stated goals are to capture the too often forgotten ordinary people doing ordinary work who have played critical roles in the development of landscape, communities, economies, and culture. This story is also one focused on a community responding to unfolding social and economic changes within the American agricultural industry. The creative developments documented here are ones borne of necessity—the invention of practical solutions to immediate problems—but according to Laudun are also strongly reflective of local traditions and culture. Too small to be of interest to large manufacturers, the slow and incremental changes in boat form, engines, hydraulics, wheel placements, etc., are based on subtle tinkering and adjustments over the years, with knowledge trickling down from person to person through word of mouth, requests for repairs and modifications at local machine shops, and through watching friends, neighbours, and even competitors at work in their fields. It is not a story of cooperation and collaboration, not at all, but one of forward progression over time based on individual and collective experiences and practical needs. Boat hulls scattered in farmers’ fields are testament to the historical truths documented here. The story itself is probably reflective of many other small industries that move forward though local innovation and without the help of dedicated engineers, scientists, or Big Industry. But, as with the case of The Amazing Crawfish Boat, many of these stories have remained untold.

Laudun has done an excellent job of describing the landscape, the intimate relationship between farmer and field, and the broad assemblage of people involved in the creative development of this one particular innovation—the amazing amphibious crawfish boat. The fact that the author shares an obvious love of the land and a deep connection with the people and local ecology makes the book a more pleasurable experience to read. The nature of the topic does require that the reader become familiar with the somewhat arcane anatomical features of the crawfish boat, its engine, and associated hydraulics, which can be challenging for the less mechanically inclined or interested, but this is balanced well with other sections of the book focused on the landscape, the agricultural history of Louisiana, and the people involved. Laudun makes the case that sociocultural landscapes, such as the one he has chronicled here, have been unfairly labelled by past historians of technology as “unimportant” because their impacts are viewed as insignificant relative to major centres of innovation. Instead, he stresses that to avoid looking at such communities is to miss discovering examples of local creativity and innovation and the roles these have played in cultural and economic development. His goal with this book is not to make us lament the changing face of these small communities and their skilled and diverse work forces, but instead to encourage us to better understand and appreciate the relationship between people and place, and the role that people, even ordinary people, have played and will continue to play within the sociocultural matrix of communities.