Dimensions
158 x 230 x 38mm
Water is history's indispensable resource. Far more than oil, the control of water wealth has been pivotal to the rise and decline of civilizations and the highlights of human achievement. In THE SOURCE, Steven Solomon offers the first-ever, narrative portrait of the personalities, innovations, and power struggles over water that have transformed world history from the original irrigation civilizations of antiquity, Roman Empire, medieval China, Islam's golden age, rise of the West, Industrial Revolution and are shaping the politics, economics and environmental realities of one of the make or break challenges of the 21st century-global fresh water scarcity.
As modern society runs short of its most essential resource and the planet's renewable water ecosystems grow depleted, an explosive new fault line is dividing humanity into water Haves and Have-Nots. Water famines threaten to ignite new wars in the bone-dry Middle East. Faltering clean water supplies menace the sustainable growth and ability of China and India to feed themselves. As world population soars towards nine billion, genocides, epidemic diseases, failed states, and civil warfare increasingly emanate from water-starved parts of Africa and Asia. Water scarcity is a critical influence upon the closely-interrelated, global crises of energy, food, and climate change. For the relatively water wealthy Western democracies, water represents no less than the new oil-demanding a major rethink of basic domestic and foreign policies, and offering a momentous opportunity to re-launch its wealth and global power.
