Water, Life and Civilisation
Water, Life and Civilisation

Author: Steven Mithen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-04-21

Total Pages: 543

ISBN-13: 1139496670

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A unique interdisciplinary study of the relationships between climate, hydrology and human society from 20,000 years ago to the present day within the Jordan Valley. It describes how state-of-the-art models can simulate the past, present and future climates of the Near East, reviews and provides new evidence for environmental change from geological deposits, builds hydrological models for the River Jordan and associated wadis and explains how present day urban and rural communities manage their water supply. The volume provides a new approach and new methods that can be applied for exploring the relationships between climate, hydrology and human society in arid and semi-arid regions throughout the world. It is an invaluable reference for researchers and advanced students concerned with the impacts of climate change and hydrology on human society, especially in the Near East.

Water, Civilisation and Power in Sudan
Water, Civilisation and Power in Sudan

Author: Harry Verhoeven

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-03-05

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1107061148

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Water, Civilisation and Power in Sudan offers an alternative account of how water policy, violence, and economic modernisation are linked.

Water
Water

Author: Steven Solomon

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2011-01-18

Total Pages: 610

ISBN-13: 0060548312

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Far more than oil, the control of water wealth throughout history has been pivotal to the rise and fall of great powers, the achievements of civilization, the transformations of society's vital habitats, and the quality of ordinary daily lives. Today, freshwater scarcity is one of the twenty-first century's decisive, looming challenges, driving new political, economic, and environmental realities across the globe. In Water, Steven Solomon offers the first-ever narrative portrait of the power struggles, personalities, and breakthroughs that have shaped humanity from antiquity's earliest civilizations through the steam-powered Industrial Revolution and America's century. Meticulously researched and masterfully written, Water is a groundbreaking account of man's most critical resource in shaping human destinies, from ancient times to our dawning age of water scarcity.

Energy and Civilization
Energy and Civilization

Author: Vaclav Smil

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2018-11-13

Total Pages: 564

ISBN-13: 0262536161

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A comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society throughout history, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. "I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next 'Star Wars' movie. In his latest book, Energy and Civilization: A History, he goes deep and broad to explain how innovations in humans' ability to turn energy into heat, light, and motion have been a driving force behind our cultural and economic progress over the past 10,000 years. —Bill Gates, Gates Notes, Best Books of the Year Energy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done. The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows—ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity—for their civilized existence. In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts—from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics, and the environment. Smil describes humanity's energy eras in panoramic and interdisciplinary fashion, offering readers a magisterial overview. This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History (1994). Smil has incorporated an enormous amount of new material, reflecting the dramatic developments in energy studies over the last two decades and his own research over that time.

Water Engineering inAncient Civilizations
Water Engineering inAncient Civilizations

Author: Pierre-Louis Viollet

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2017-10-02

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 0203375319

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This new book offers an engineer's perspective on the history of water technology and its impact on the development of civilisation. A Second Edition and translation into English of the French book "L'Hydraulique dans les Civilisations Anciennes".Water professionals, engineers, scientists, and students will find this book fascinating and invaluable

Water
Water

Author: Giulio Boccaletti

Publisher: Pantheon

Published: 2021-09-14

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 1524748234

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Spanning millennia and continents, a revealing history that “tackles the most important story of our time: our relationship with water in a world of looming scarcity” (Kelly McEvers, NPR Host). "Far more than a biography of its nominal subject ... The book stands as a compelling history of civilization itself." —The Wall Street Journal Book Review 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.

Water, Life and Civilisation
Water, Life and Civilisation

Author: Steven J. Mithen

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 490

ISBN-13: 9781139075183

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"A unique interdisciplinary study of the relationships between climate, hydrology and human society from 20,000 years ago to the present day within the Jordan Valley. It describes how state-of-the-art models can simulate the past, present and future climates of the Near East, reviews and provides new evidence for environmental change from geological deposits, builds hydrological models for the River Jordan and associated wadis and explains how present day urban and rural communities manage their water supply. The volume provides a new approach and new methods that can be applied for exploring the relationships between climate, hydrology and human society in arid and semi-arid regions throughout the world. It is an invaluable reference for researchers and advanced students concerned with the impacts of climate change and hydrology on human society, especially in the Near East"--

Dirt
Dirt

Author: David R. Montgomery

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2007-05-14

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 0520933168

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Dirt, soil, call it what you want—it's everywhere we go. It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of dirt, and it's no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern times, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations explores the compelling idea that we are—and have long been—using up Earth's soil. Once bare of protective vegetation and exposed to wind and rain, cultivated soils erode bit by bit, slowly enough to be ignored in a single lifetime but fast enough over centuries to limit the lifespan of civilizations. A rich mix of history, archaeology and geology, Dirt traces the role of soil use and abuse in the history of Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, China, European colonialism, Central America, and the American push westward. We see how soil has shaped us and we have shaped soil—as society after society has risen, prospered, and plowed through a natural endowment of fertile dirt. David R. Montgomery sees in the recent rise of organic and no-till farming the hope for a new agricultural revolution that might help us avoid the fate of previous civilizations.

Thirst
Thirst

Author: Steven Mithen

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2012-11-26

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 0674072197

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Water is an endangered resource, imperiled by population growth, mega-urbanization, and climate change. Scientists project that by 2050, freshwater shortages will affect 75 percent of the global population. Steven Mithen puts our current crisis in historical context by exploring 10,000 years of humankind’s management of water. Thirst offers cautionary tales of civilizations defeated by the challenges of water control, as well as inspirational stories about how technological ingenuity has sustained communities in hostile environments. As in his acclaimed, genre-defying After the Ice and The Singing Neanderthals, Mithen blends archaeology, current science, and ancient literature to give us a rich new picture of how our ancestors lived. Since the Neolithic Revolution, people have recognized water as a commodity and source of economic power and have manipulated its flow. History abounds with examples of ambitious water management projects and hydraulic engineering—from the Sumerians, whose mastery of canal building and irrigation led to their status as the first civilization, to the Nabataeans, who created a watery paradise in the desert city of Petra, to the Khmer, who built a massive inland sea at Angkor, visible from space. As we search for modern solutions to today’s water crises, from the American Southwest to China, Mithen also looks for lessons in the past. He suggests that we follow one of the most unheeded pieces of advice to come down from ancient times. In the words of Li Bing, whose waterworks have irrigated the Sichuan Basin since 256 BC, “Work with nature, not against it.”

History of Water and Humanity
History of Water and Humanity

Author: Unesco

Publisher: United Nations Education, Scientific & Cultural Organization

Published: 2023-02-20

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9789231042300

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To assemble, evaluate and promote appropriate examination of water management in history requires a bold and global initiative. To this end, the UNESCO International Hydrological Programme is pioneering a project to develop a systematic and transcultural interdisciplinary knowledge base. Water History and Humanity explores key issues and cultural developments in humanitys relationships with water in a coherent, historical framework. The strength of this volume lies in its holistic anthropological approach, which reveals how various cultures have used and conceptualized water across multiple contexts, and how our interactions with water have transformed the way we see ourselves and the world.