Floods and Drainage

I have approximately 8 thousand important things to be doing today, and I have put off posting this for many hours now, but I can avoid it no longer.
Today, walking the stacks of the library looking for books about Russian peasants in the 19th century, I found a book called:

Floods and Drainage from the Risks and Hazards Series. The cover is green, with some weird concentric circles on it. How glad my life now seems! No matter what difficulties I may face, I am not in the position of E.C. Penning-Rowsell, D.J. Parker, or D.M. Harding, writing a treatise on British policies for "hazard reduction, agricultural improvement and wetland conservation."

Also notable is the dedication page; I can't figure out whether it's a joke or actually terribly rude. It reads:
"This book is dedicated to Dr Foster who, by retreating in adversity, happily left our research field wide open."

This book is now standing proudly on my thesis shelf. My neighbors in the carrels do not understand my enthusiasm.