Water: the epic struggle for wealth power and civilization Solomon, Steven

Far more than oil, the control of water wealth has been pivotal to the rise and decline of great powers, notable achievements of civilization, and the quality of ordinary daily lives. In Water, Steven Solomon offers the first-ever, narrative portrait of the personalities, innovations, and power struggles over water that have transformed human history from the irrigation civilisations of antiquity, Roman Empire, medieval China, Islam's golden age, rise of the West, Industrial Revolution, and are driving the politics, economics and environmental realities of one of the decisive challenges of 21st-century global society-fresh water scarcity. As modern society runs short of its most indispensable resource and the planet's renewable water ecosystems grow depleted, an explosive new fault line is dividing humanity into water Haves and Have-Nots. Genocides, epidemic diseases, failed states, and civil warfare increasingly emanate from water-starved, overpopulated parts of Africa and Asia. 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. Water scarcity is inseparably interrelated, with the global crises of energy, food, and climate change. For Western democracies, water represents no less than the new oil-demanding a major rethink of basic domestic and foreign policies, but also offering a momentous opportunity to re-launch its wealth and global power through calculated, strategic exercise of its comparative global advantage as a leading freshwater resource. (Source: www.alibris.com)