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Water

A Biography

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Water

Written by: Giulio Boccaletti
Narrated by: Giulio Boccaletti
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About this listen

 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 Boc­caletti—honorary research associate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Univer­sity of Oxford—shrewdly combines environmental and social history, beginning with the earliest civ­ilizations 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.


Cover image: "Vista", painting by Tobias Tovera © 2016 Earth Sciences Environmental Geopolitics International Relations Politics & Government Public Policy Science Climate Change Water
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Superb documentation of the history of water... with few gaps. The historical breadth covered is very impressive, the narration is gripping. One disagreement... Technology has perhaps played and is playing a far greater role in shaping the water story (and water institutions) than the author acknowledges. This is particularly true in the case of groundwater - central to South Asian and many other water economies - than perhaps for surface water. Improvement in drilling and water lifting technologies, expansion of rural electrification, and recently solar energy...have all been significant shapers of groundwater economies. An aspect that perhaps deserved more coverage is water pollution, and another, the growing and unique demands imposed by rapid urbanization and industrialization. Despite these minor gaps, this an impressive volume, thoroughly researched and insightful.

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