Water: A Biography - Giulio Boccaletti Audiobook

Written by Giulio Boccaletti
Read by Giulio Boccaletti
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Release date: September 14, 2021
Duration: 14:17:06

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.

Booklist September 15, 2021
As with all other life forms, humanity is inextricably linked to water. With a favorable balance, we progress; absent that balance, we struggle. We understand this truth on a fundamental level, but Boccaletti’s wonderfully detailed account of humankind’s relationship with water truly brings this fact to life. … This biography of Earth’s crucial resource covers an expansive time line, from antiquity to the present day. Along the way, Water chronicles the precarious balance between human ingenuity (controlling water via dams, irrigation, and other systems) and human fragility (our utter reliance on water and weather patterns and vulnerability to climate change). … During this time of accelerated population growth, climate change, and political instability, Water is essential reading.