A revelatory history--spanning continents and millennia--of how the distribution of water has shaped human civilization, by the chief strategy officer and global ambassador of water at The Nature Conservancy.
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 …
A revelatory history--spanning continents and millennia--of how the distribution of water has shaped human civilization, by the chief strategy officer and global ambassador of water at The Nature Conservancy.
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.
What if water defines humanity? It is a tall order to argue that something as mundane and malleable as water has played a critical defining factor of history, civilization, landscape, weather, and it's fates. Yet this book is exactly that. More than a descriptive biography, it's a thrilling narrative that travels across space and time, indeed from the big bang to the end of the universe, and from China to Irak and Europe.
