What is Water?: The History of a Modern AbstractionWe all know what water is, and we often take it for granted. But the spectre of a worldwide water crisis suggests that there might be something fundamentally wrong with the way we think about water. Jamie Linton dives into the history of water as an abstract concept, stripped of its environmental, social, and cultural contexts. Reduced to a scientific abstraction - to mere H20 - this concept has given modern society licence to dam, divert, and manipulate water with apparent impunity. Part of the solution to the water crisis involves reinvesting water with social content, thus altering the way we see water. An original take on a deceptively complex issue, What Is Water? offers a fresh approach to a fundamental problem. |
Contents
Putting Things in Fluid Terms | 24 |
Intimations ofModern Water | 47 |
From Premodern Waters to Modern Water | 73 |
Scientific and Sacred | 105 |
The Hortonian Hydrologic Cycle | 126 |
Modern Water the Hydrologic Cycle | 148 |
Global Water | 162 |
The Constitution of Modern Water | 175 |
Modern Water in Crisis | 191 |
The New Global Water Regime | 212 |
Hydrolectics | 223 |
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Common terms and phrases
abstract American approach aquifers Biswas Bruno Latour Castree Changing Water Paradigm Chapter circulation of water concept considered construction cultural dams described diagram dialectical Dooge earth economic effect engineering environment environmental Erik Swyngedouw evaporation example Falkenmark Figure geographical Gleick global water crisis Hamlin Harvey historians History of Hydrology Horton human hybrids hydraulic hydro hydrolectics hydrologic cycle hydrologic science hydrologists hydrosocial cycle hydrosocial relations hydrosphere Ibid identified International irrigation Ivan Illich L’vovich Last Oasis Latour logic cycle material McGee means Meinzer modern water Nace National natural philosophy natural theology nature of water Neil Smith ofwater origin of springs particular Perrault Pierre Perrault Political Ecology practice produce scientific hydrology social nature society socio-natural suggests sustain Swyngedouw things tion traditional Tuan United Vitruvius water balance water crisis water cycle water management water process water resources water scarcity water services water supply World Water Worster