Anthony Acciavatti's book Ganges Water Machine: Designing New India's Ancient River is an insanely ambitious piece of field research. Starting in 2005, the New York'based architect and author began crisscrossing the most populous river basin in the world, traveling on foot and by boat, with a camera and hand-held GPS unit, documenting cities, towns, and villages, as well as infrastructure and agriculture. Dismayed to discover that the most recent maps of the fabled river dated back to the 1960s, he set out to chart the route from its source at the Gangotri Glacier in the Himalayas to the city of Patna, taking more than 25,000 photographs, filling 15 sketchbooks, and creating some 350 maps. Originally, Acciavatti set aside a year to do it. The resulting book, produced nine years and many trips to India later, is what he calls a 'dynamic altas,' a dense, historical, visually rich look at the ecological and spiritual heart of India.

Like all great rivers, the Ganges has a deep history of commerce, conflict, culture (including some stunning buildings along its path), colonial and postcolonial politics, and myth-making'of virtually everything, in other words, that humans do when they are drawn to water to form cities and towns. In India, that connection is even more intense: 'Every 12th year, the sleepy university town of Allahabad is transformed into a colossal tent city populated by millions of pilgrims for the Kumbh Mela (literally Pitcher Celebration),' writes Acciavatti. 'And it all seems to happen so fast. The waters of the Ganges and Jamuna slowly recede after the monsoon. A city grid is tattooed into the banks and shoals at the Sangam. Tents and temples pop up in October. Pontoon bridges stretch from one bank of the Ganges to the other and pilgrims begin to arrive in January.'