Thirst

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 def...

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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.

List of Figures
List of Photographs
Acknowledgements
1. Thirst: For knowledge of the past and lessons for the future
2. The water revolution: The origins of water management in the Levant, 1.5 million years ago to 700 BC
3. ‘The black fields became white/the broad plain was choked with salt’: Water management and the rise and fall of Sumerian civilisation, 5000–1600 BC
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List of Figures
List of Photographs
Acknowledgements
1. Thirst: For knowledge of the past and lessons for the future
2. The water revolution: The origins of water management in the Levant, 1.5 million years ago to 700 BC
3. ‘The black fields became white/the broad plain was choked with salt’: Water management and the rise and fall of Sumerian civilisation, 5000–1600 BC
4. ‘Water is the best thing of all’—Pindar of Thebes, 476 BC: Water management by the Minoans, Mycenaeans, and Ancient Greeks, 1800–146 BC
5. A watery paradise in Petra: The Nabataeans, masters of the desert, 300 BC–AD 106
6. Building rivers and taking baths: Rome and Constantinople, 400 BC–AD 800
7. A million men with teaspoons: Hydraulic engineering in Ancient China, 900 BC–AD 907
8. The hydraulic city: Water management by the kings of Angkor, AD 802–1327
9. Almost a civilisation: Hohokam irrigation in the American South-West, AD 1–1450
10. Life and death of the water lily monster: Water and the rise and fall of Mayan civilisation, 2000 BC–AD 1000
11. Water poetry in the Sacred Valley: Hydraulic engineering by the Incas, AD 1200–1572
12. An unquenched thirst: For water and for knowledge of the past
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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