The history of the modern idea of water – an idea whose consequences have helped produce a global crisis.
Description
We all know what water is, and we often take it for granted. But the spectre of a worldwide water crisis suggests that there might be something fundamentally wrong with the way we think about water. Jamie Linton dives into the history of water as an abstract concept, stripped of its environmental, social, and cultural contexts. Reduced to a scientific abstraction – to mere H20 – this concept has given modern society licence to dam, divert, and manipulate water with apparent impunity. Part of the solution to the water crisis involves reinvesting water with social content, thus altering the way we see water. An original take on a deceptively complex issue, What Is Water? offers a fresh approach to a fundamental problem.
Reviews
Linton’s message needs to be taken seriously by anyone for whom water is something more than so many molecules of H2O … it is a message that should be incorporated into both introductory and advanced courses in a number of disciplines dealing not only with water but with all natural resources.
- David B. Brooks, Fresh Water, Friends of the Earth, Canada
Linton presents the issues in impressive breadth and depth, and tells a compelling story. Recommended.
- Choice
Jamie Linton’s excellent analysis fills a gap in the understanding of our conceptions of water. His critiques of the water crisis and the new paradigm of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) are simply brilliant and long overdue. The book is easy to read for an audience new to the literature on water from a social science perspective.
- Olivier Graefe, University of Fribourg
The publication of Jamie Linton’s superb monograph, What is Water?, provides an opportunity to consider the development of relational and dialectical thought within geography and especially how this has developed around the subject of water.
- Alex Loftus, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London