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3.44 AVERAGE
3.44 AVERAGE
meyersbs's review
4.0
An interesting deep dive into how water has shaped human civilization from early hunter gatherers to modern day. A few examples offer glimpses into our future, where the foundations of civilization crumble in the wake of limited access to water.
ryandandrews's review
3.0
This book is DENSE. In some good ways and some not-so-good ways. It was a bit more detail than I was looking for around the history of civilizations and water.
Here are a few of my favorite clips:
Sedentary agriculture changed human society. Most natural ecosystems do not maximize digestible calories for humans, but farming can.
Salinization is a process by which the magnesium, calcium, and sodium found in water accumulate in soil, binding with clay and making the soil impermeable. In those conditions, plants struggle to germinate, and roots fail to absorb nutrients.
The Mississippi is a gigantic river basin, covering 40% of the modern continental U.S. Its drainage is almost 3 million square kilometers, comparable to the size of India. Only the Amazon and Congo river basins are bigger. One of the consequences of such a wide, dendritic system is that the river intercepts many climates, from winter rains, to snowmelt, to summer rains, all happening in different parts of the basin. As a result the flow in the lower river can be highly variable. Peak floods can carry thirty times the water of low flow.
The flood of 1927 was the worst in American history. In the end, it inundated 7 million hectares of land, killed about 500 people, and left seven hundred thousand homeless. Its damages were equivalent to a third of that year's U.S. federal budget.
Mussolini turned to the impoverished south, where there was no organized labor, and he could rely on the landowners to control the rural population. Exploitation of farm laborers reached depths of inhumanity seldom witnessed in twentieth-century Europe.
In the early thirties, a severe drought hit the Great Plains right as grain price collapsed in the wake of the Depression. It was bad timing. The Dust Bowl had started. Overextended farmers went bankrupt. Land was abandoned at the same speed at which it had been developed. As farmers left their properties, the exposed topsoil baked and pulverized in the drought. The winds of the Great Plains then lifted up the dust into huge black blizzards, big enough to block the sun, worsening drought conditions further. When cold air from Canada and warm air from the Dakotas swirled over the plains igniting storms, the atmosphere became a huge planetary vacuum cleaner, sucking up into the sky hundreds of thousands of tons of dirt in squalls hundreds of miles wide and thousands of feet tall.
In 1930, only 10% of farms had access to electricity.
[In regard to Mao and China] ---> The commitment to water projects was so substantial that it become the primary drain of labor from the farms. Between 1958 and 1959 an estimated hundred million peasants were assigned to dig canals and other irrigation projects. The drain of labor from the field meant that when harvest came there was no one to collect it and it remained to rot. By early 1958 one in six people were digging to transform the landscape of the nation. Six hundred million cubic meters of rocks and soil were moved during that year. The human cost of these efforts was enormous. One estimated suggested that for every fifty thousand hectares under irrigation, a hundred lives were lost.
During the 20th century, inspired by the success of the model republic of the modern age, most rich societies replumbed the planet to insulate their citizens from the impact of the planet's climate and give their economies a comparative advantage. To do so, they harness the power of water while allowing everyone to live their lives at the sole beat of industrialization. For all intents and purposes, in wealthy countries at least, the climate system had mostly disappeared from people's lives. Never before had water always been available, when and where needed, and always of a quality fit for its purpose. Never before had people been able to move around the landscape unimpeded, going about their technology-laden day, streams paved over, rivers contained, and all floods avoided. But while technology has changed people's relationship to climate, the thousands of years of layered institutions, which have defined the relationship between society and water over time, continue to play the dominant role in shaping the outcomes.
The deepest tension: That of a sedentary society trying to live together while negotiating a world of moving water.
The story of water is principally a story of political institutions.
Here are a few of my favorite clips:
Sedentary agriculture changed human society. Most natural ecosystems do not maximize digestible calories for humans, but farming can.
Salinization is a process by which the magnesium, calcium, and sodium found in water accumulate in soil, binding with clay and making the soil impermeable. In those conditions, plants struggle to germinate, and roots fail to absorb nutrients.
The Mississippi is a gigantic river basin, covering 40% of the modern continental U.S. Its drainage is almost 3 million square kilometers, comparable to the size of India. Only the Amazon and Congo river basins are bigger. One of the consequences of such a wide, dendritic system is that the river intercepts many climates, from winter rains, to snowmelt, to summer rains, all happening in different parts of the basin. As a result the flow in the lower river can be highly variable. Peak floods can carry thirty times the water of low flow.
The flood of 1927 was the worst in American history. In the end, it inundated 7 million hectares of land, killed about 500 people, and left seven hundred thousand homeless. Its damages were equivalent to a third of that year's U.S. federal budget.
Mussolini turned to the impoverished south, where there was no organized labor, and he could rely on the landowners to control the rural population. Exploitation of farm laborers reached depths of inhumanity seldom witnessed in twentieth-century Europe.
In the early thirties, a severe drought hit the Great Plains right as grain price collapsed in the wake of the Depression. It was bad timing. The Dust Bowl had started. Overextended farmers went bankrupt. Land was abandoned at the same speed at which it had been developed. As farmers left their properties, the exposed topsoil baked and pulverized in the drought. The winds of the Great Plains then lifted up the dust into huge black blizzards, big enough to block the sun, worsening drought conditions further. When cold air from Canada and warm air from the Dakotas swirled over the plains igniting storms, the atmosphere became a huge planetary vacuum cleaner, sucking up into the sky hundreds of thousands of tons of dirt in squalls hundreds of miles wide and thousands of feet tall.
In 1930, only 10% of farms had access to electricity.
[In regard to Mao and China] ---> The commitment to water projects was so substantial that it become the primary drain of labor from the farms. Between 1958 and 1959 an estimated hundred million peasants were assigned to dig canals and other irrigation projects. The drain of labor from the field meant that when harvest came there was no one to collect it and it remained to rot. By early 1958 one in six people were digging to transform the landscape of the nation. Six hundred million cubic meters of rocks and soil were moved during that year. The human cost of these efforts was enormous. One estimated suggested that for every fifty thousand hectares under irrigation, a hundred lives were lost.
During the 20th century, inspired by the success of the model republic of the modern age, most rich societies replumbed the planet to insulate their citizens from the impact of the planet's climate and give their economies a comparative advantage. To do so, they harness the power of water while allowing everyone to live their lives at the sole beat of industrialization. For all intents and purposes, in wealthy countries at least, the climate system had mostly disappeared from people's lives. Never before had water always been available, when and where needed, and always of a quality fit for its purpose. Never before had people been able to move around the landscape unimpeded, going about their technology-laden day, streams paved over, rivers contained, and all floods avoided. But while technology has changed people's relationship to climate, the thousands of years of layered institutions, which have defined the relationship between society and water over time, continue to play the dominant role in shaping the outcomes.
The deepest tension: That of a sedentary society trying to live together while negotiating a world of moving water.
The story of water is principally a story of political institutions.
kennnedyexe's review
2.0
It was okay... this is just a high school "world history" textbook-- complete with the single chapter of lip service to "mandate of heaven" Ancient China and reams and reams of Greek and Roman fixation. When I was a sophomore in high school I would've found this fascinating just by virtue of the fact that I had never been exposed to ANYTHING yet. It's fine to follow the traditional western canon of obsessions and selective focus/blindness if that happens to be your niche, but don't pretend to be comprehensive. Just call it what it is. Western empire fop material. I love classical studies! I read Anne Carson and Mary Beard religiously. It's not "world history" if it only focuses on the Mediterranean until the establishment of the American empire, when it sharply switches lens to predictably, America as the center of the western canon. Interesting enough from that angle, but far, far, far from inclusive and lightyears from comprehensive.
Additionally, similarly to a hastily written high school paper, the premise of the book didn't really seem to have much bearing on the actual content aside from the extremely repetitive introduction and "thesis" points of each section. The rest of it was just, the typical laundry list of historical dates and figures and events without any angle or argument to be seen. I suppose I was just expected "to be thinking about water" while I re-read my textbook.
Additionally, similarly to a hastily written high school paper, the premise of the book didn't really seem to have much bearing on the actual content aside from the extremely repetitive introduction and "thesis" points of each section. The rest of it was just, the typical laundry list of historical dates and figures and events without any angle or argument to be seen. I suppose I was just expected "to be thinking about water" while I re-read my textbook.
littlespeck's review
3.0
Listened to the audio book. I feel I would have really struggled with reading this book as it was very dry. Seemed very well researched. I'm definitely not someone who could say I ever really thought about water infrastructure. I learned a lot.