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The Search for Water

A Human History of Thirst

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The Search for Water

Written by: Virginia Mendoza, Thomas Bunstead - translation
Narrated by: Justine Medda
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Virginia Mendoza's first memories are of drought. She grew up in La Mancha, Spain, the driest region in Europe. Her parents, grandparents, and almost every word, tool, and tradition of her homeland conveyed one conviction: without water, there is no life; without water, there is no civilization.
In The Search for Water, Mendoza weaves this personal reflection together with a dazzling scientific and anthropological enquiry into the ways the search for water has shaped the story of humanity. From flows of migration, agriculture and pagan rain gods to contemporary struggles with drought and climate change, Mendoza writes a gripping and inventive history of humankind as driven and united by one force: thirst.

©2026 Pushkin Press (P)2026 Pushkin Press Earth Sciences Environment Environmentalists & Naturalists Human Geography Professionals & Academics Science Social Sciences
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Critic Reviews

An evocative, richly researched blend of family and human history that sparked my imagination and my sense of wonder (Helen Gordon, author of 'Notes from Deep Time')
An extraordinary tour-de-force: Mendoza creates a watercolour of history that is by turns soaring and intimate, arresting and paradigm-shifting, drawing on cave-paintings, dendrochronology, myths, folksongs and climate science to show how weather patterns have shaped civilisations, migrations, revolutions, religions, cultures and lives across the planet, providing an essential background to the water wars that lie ahead (Edward Wilson-Lee, author of 'A History of Water')
Mendoza roams across the planet to tell the fascinating story of the elementary drive for water. The Search for Water dives elegantly into meteorology, archeology, mythology, memory and more - enthralling (Jack Cornish, author of 'The Lost Paths')
What knowledge, what capacity to connect and explain things that seem unconnected. An intellectual pleasure (Irene Vallejo, author of 'Papyrus')
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