Discusses the importance of humans' connection to water and how people are drawn to being in, on, or around oceans, rivers, and lakes and points to recent findings in neuroscience that indicate that proximity to water can improve mood, performance, health, and success. There's something about water that attracts and fascinates us. No wonder: it's the most omnipresent substance on Earth and, along with air, the primary ingredient for supporting life....

"In this richly narrated and authoritative work--combining environmental and societal history--Giulio Boccaletti begins with the earliest civilizations of sedentary farmers on the banks of the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. He describes how these societies were made possible by sea level changes from the last glacial melt. He examines how this sedentary farming led to irrigation and multiple cropping, which, in turn, resulted in an explosion...

"Sandra Postel takes readers around the world to explore water projects that work with, rather than against, nature's rhythms. In New Mexico, forest rehabilitation is safeguarding drinking water; along the Mississippi River, farmers are planting cover crops to reduce polluted runoff; and in China, "sponge cities" are capturing rainwater to curb urban flooding. Efforts like these will be essential as climate change disrupts both weather patterns and...

Debates the issue of water resources.

Duke professor James Salzman shows how drinking water highlights the most pressing issues of our time--from globalization and social justice to terrorism and climate change--and how humans have been wrestling with these problems for centuries.

"In a refreshing perspective on water that transcends zero-sum thinking, the author of the groundbreaking Cows Save the Planet, sharing stories from around the globe, offers real-world solutions to today's water crisis, "--NoveList.

"In 2000, a transformative climate-driven 'megadrought' swept over the Colorado River watershed. By the early 2020s, levels on the river's two largest reservoirs were hitting record lows and threatening the water supply for forty million people. Outside the West, water stocks are stressed even in states with bountiful rainfall such as Florida. From coast to coast, conventional measures to sustain the most fundamental natural resource on earth--drinking...

The author tells the story of our most vital resource and how it has shaped our history, tracing three ages of water. The book spans five millennia, from ancient Mesopotamia to the parched present of the Sun Belt. As the author shows, every human society has been shaped by its relationship to our most essential resource. This narrative moves across the world, from ancient Greece and Rome, whose mighty aqueducts still supply modern cities, to China,...