{"product_id":"water-giulio-boccaletti-9780525566007","title":"Water","description":"\u003cp\u003eSpanning millennia and continents, a stunning, revealing history of how the distribution of water has shaped human civilization\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSpanning 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).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"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\n\u003cbr\u003e \n\u003cbr\u003e Writing with authority and brio, Giulio Boc-caletti-honorary research associate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Univer-sity of Oxford-shrewdly combines environmental and social history, beginning with the earliest civ-ilizations 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. \n\u003cbr\u003e \n\u003cbr\u003e 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. \n\u003cbr\u003e \n\u003cbr\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Giulio Boccaletti","offers":[{"title":"As New","offer_id":48437368324339,"sku":"7770002934179","price":16.95,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0634\/4284\/5939\/files\/9780525566007.jpg?v=1769542486","url":"https:\/\/www.harryhartog.com.au\/products\/water-giulio-boccaletti-9780525566007","provider":"Harry Hartog Bookseller","version":"1.0","type":"link"}