Thirst : water and power in the ancient world / Steven Mithen.

Freshwater shortages will affect 75% of the world's population by 2050. Mithen puts this crisis into context by exploring 10,000 years of water management. Thirst tells of civilizations defeated by the water challenge, and of technological ingenuity that sustained communities in hostile environ...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Mithen, Steven J.
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, ©2012.
Subjects:
Online Access:Click for online access
Table of Contents:
  • Thirst: For knowledge of the past and lessons for the future
  • The water revolution: The origins of water management in the Levant, 1.5 million years ago to 700 BC
  • '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
  • 'Water is the best thing of all'
  • Pindar of Thebes, 476 BC: Water management by the Minoans, Mycenaeans, and Ancient Greeks, 1800-146 BC
  • A watery paradise in Petra: The Nabataeans, masters of the desert, 300 BC-AD 106
  • Building rivers and taking baths: Rome and Constantinople, 400 BC-AD 800
  • A million men with teaspoons: Hydraulic engineering in Ancient China, 900 BC-AD 907
  • The hydraulic city: Water management by the kings of Angkor, AD 802-1327
  • Almost a civilisation: Hohokam irrigation in the American South-West, AD 1-1450
  • Life and death of the water lily monster: Water and the rise and fall of Mayan civilisation, 2000 BC-AD 1000
  • Water poetry in the Sacred Valley: Hydraulic engineering by the Incas, AD 1200-1572
  • An unquenched thirst: For water and for knowledge of the past.