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Water : a biography / Giulio Boccaletti.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Pantheon Books, [2021]Edition: First editionDescription: xiv, 378 pages : color maps ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781524748234
  • 1524748234
Subject(s):
Contents:
Part I -- Origins -- Standing still in a world of moving water -- The rise of the hydraulic state -- Bronze Age globalization -- An article of faith -- The politics of Water -- Res Publica -- Part II -- A thousand years of convergence -- Fragments of the past -- The republic returns -- Water sovereignty -- American river republic -- Global water empire -- The great Utopian synthesis -- Part III -- The hydraulic century -- Setting the stage for revolution -- Crisis and its discontent -- industrializing modernity -- FDR's modernization project -- Cold War -- The great acceleration -- The end of an era -- Part IV -- Finale -- A world of scarcity -- A planetary experiment -- Coda -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.
Summary: "In this richly narrated and authoritative work--combining environmental and societal history--Giulio Boccaletti begins with the earliest civilizations of sedentary farmers on the banks of the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. He describes how these societies were made possible by sea level changes from the last glacial melt. He examines how this sedentary farming led to irrigation and multiple cropping, which, in turn, resulted in an explosion in population and the specialization of labor. We see how irrigation structure led to social structure--inventions like the calendar sprung from agricultural necessity; how, in Ancient Greece, communal ownership of wells laid the groundwork for democracy; how the Greek and Roman experience dealing with water security was the seed for tax systems. And he makes clear how the modern world as we know it began with a legal structure for the development of water infrastructure. In its scope and clarity, Water: A Biography provides a fascinating framework through which we can more fully understand society's relationship to, and fundamental reliance on, the most elemental substance on our planet"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 909 B664 Added to Claims Returned Report 12/2023 Available 33111010749022
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Spanning millennia and continents, here is a stunningly revealing history of how the distribution of water has shaped human civilization. Boccaletti, of The Nature Conservancy, "tackles the most important story of our time- our relationship with water in a world of looming scarcity" (Kelly McEvers, NPR Host).

Writing with authority and brio, Giulio Boc-caletti-honorary research associate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Univer-sity of Oxford-shrewdly combines environmental and social history, beginning with the earliest civ-ilizations of sedentary farmers on the banks of the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates Rivers. Even as he describes how these societies were made possible by sea-level changes from the last glacial melt, he incisively examines how this type of farming led to irrigation and multiple cropping, which, in turn, led to a population explosion and labor specialization.

We see with clarity how irrigation's structure informed social structure (inventions such as the calendar sprung from agricultural necessity); how in ancient Greece, the communal ownership of wells laid the groundwork for democracy; how the Greek and Roman experiences with water security resulted in systems of taxation; and how the modern world as we know it began with a legal framework for the development of water infrastructure.

Extraordinary for its monumental scope and piercing insightfulness, Water- A Biography richly enlarges our understanding of our relationship to-and fundamental reliance on-the most elemental substance on earth.

Map on lining papers.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 301-358) and index.

Part I -- Origins -- Standing still in a world of moving water -- The rise of the hydraulic state -- Bronze Age globalization -- An article of faith -- The politics of Water -- Res Publica -- Part II -- A thousand years of convergence -- Fragments of the past -- The republic returns -- Water sovereignty -- American river republic -- Global water empire -- The great Utopian synthesis -- Part III -- The hydraulic century -- Setting the stage for revolution -- Crisis and its discontent -- industrializing modernity -- FDR's modernization project -- Cold War -- The great acceleration -- The end of an era -- Part IV -- Finale -- A world of scarcity -- A planetary experiment -- Coda -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

"In this richly narrated and authoritative work--combining environmental and societal history--Giulio Boccaletti begins with the earliest civilizations of sedentary farmers on the banks of the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. He describes how these societies were made possible by sea level changes from the last glacial melt. He examines how this sedentary farming led to irrigation and multiple cropping, which, in turn, resulted in an explosion in population and the specialization of labor. We see how irrigation structure led to social structure--inventions like the calendar sprung from agricultural necessity; how, in Ancient Greece, communal ownership of wells laid the groundwork for democracy; how the Greek and Roman experience dealing with water security was the seed for tax systems. And he makes clear how the modern world as we know it began with a legal structure for the development of water infrastructure. In its scope and clarity, Water: A Biography provides a fascinating framework through which we can more fully understand society's relationship to, and fundamental reliance on, the most elemental substance on our planet"-- Provided by publisher.

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