Book description
I> spans five millennia, from the beginnings of civilisation to the
global water shortages of today. Our present-day interaction with this
most essential resource has deep roots in the remote past, and every
human culture has been shaped by its relationship to water. From the
earliest hunter-gatherers, for whom knowing where to find water was a
matter of life and death, through the Greek and Romans, whose mighty
aqueducts still provide water for modern cities, to China, where
emperors marshalled armies of labourers to tame the country's powerful
rivers, every human culture has been shaped by its relationship with
water. Medieval Europe, and then the Industrial Revolution, brought
ingenious new solutions to water management and turned water into a
commodity to be bought, sold, and exploited, and we still live at the
mercy of the natural world for our most essential resource.
Brian Fagan tells the story of 5,000 years of human
endeavour. Deeply researched and elegantly written, Elixir
illustrates that the past teaches us that technologies for solving one
or another water problem are not enough. We still live at the mercy of
the natural world and to solve the water crises of the future we may
need to adapt the water ethos of our ancestors.
I> of Water<
Elixir: A Human History<
Brian Fagan was born in England and spent several
years doing fieldwork in Africa. He is Emeritus Professor of
Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is
the author of New York Times bestseller The Great
Warming and many other books, including Fish on Friday:
Feasting, Fasting, and the Discovery of the New World, and
several books on climate history, including The Little Ice
Age and The Long Summer.
