What Is Water?: The History of a Modern Abstraction

Jamie Linton

Published by University of British Columbia Press 2009

What Is Water?

The History of a Modern Abstraction

Jamie Linton

In the series Nature | History | Society

https://doi.org/10.59962/9780774817035

Overview
Contents

About this book

The history of the modern idea of water – an idea whose consequences have helped produce a global crisis.

We all know what water is, and we often take it for granted. Because it seems so natural, we seldom question how we see water. 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 the modern concept of water, that water can be stripped of its wider environmental, social, and cultural contexts and reduced to a scientific abstraction – to mere H₂0. This abstraction has given modern society licence to dam, divert, and manipulate water with impunity, giving rise to a growing suite of problems. Linton argues that part of the solution to the water crisis involves deliberately reinvesting water with social content.

Author / Editor information

Jamie Linton is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at Queen’s University.

Reviews

Alex Loftus, Department of Geography, University of London:
The book demonstrates, in a clear and concise fashion, the ways in which contemporary social relationships with water have constituted a crisis ... The subject is of fundamental importance and the author’s emphasis on the need to posit environmental concerns within a socio-natural understanding is vital.

Olivier Graefe, University of Fribourg:
Jamie Linton’s excellent analysis fills a gap in the understanding of our conceptions of water. His critiques of the water crisis and the new paradigm of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) are simply brilliant and long overdue. The book is easy to read for an audience new to the literature on water from a social science perspective.

Choice:

Linton presents the issues in impressive breadth and depth, and tells a compelling story. Recommended.

Alex Loftus, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London:
The publication of Jamie Linton’s superb monograph, What is Water?, provides an opportunity to consider the development of relational and dialectical thought within geography and especially how this has developed around the subject of water.

David B. Brooks, Fresh Water, Friends of the Earth, Canada:

Linton’s message needs to be taken seriously by anyone for whom water is something more than so many molecules of H₂O … it is a message that should be incorporated into both introductory and advanced courses in a number of disciplines dealing not only with water but with all natural resources.

from the Foreword by Graeme Wynn:
Beginning a book as Jamie Linton does this one, with the claim that “water is what we make of it,” is an act of provocation ... Just as a stone thrown into a lake spreads ripples outward across its surface, so Linton’s provocation sends intellectual shock waves hammering into pervasive ways of understanding and defining water, invites reflection on the ways in which people have thought about water in the past, and heightens awareness of the consequences that will flow from what we make of water in the future.

Topics

Front Matter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Foreword Making Waves Graeme Wynn Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	xvii
Introduction
Fixing the Flow: The Things We Make of Water Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	3
Relational Dialectics: Putting Things in Fluid Terms Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	24
The History of Modern Water
Intimations of Modern Water Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	47
From Premodern Waters to Modern Water Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
The Hydrologic Cycle(s): Scientific and Sacred Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
The Hortonian Hydrologic Cycle Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	126
Reading the Resource: Modern Water, the Hydrologic Cycle, and the State Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	148
Culmination: Global Water Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	162
The Constitutional Crisis of Modern Water
The Constitution of Modern Water Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
Modern Water in Crisis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191
Sustaining Modern Water: The New “Global Water Regime” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	212
Conclusion: What Becomes of Water
Hydrolectics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	248
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	295
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	324

Language: English
Publisher: University of British Columbia Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 352
Illustrations
- Other: 30 b&w illustrations

eBook

Published: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 9780774817035