Water: A Biography

4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars | 164 ratings

Price: 17.72

Last update: 07-29-2024


Top reviews from the United States

Amanda
5.0 out of 5 stars great holiday gift for the history lover or environmentalist in your life
Reviewed in the United States on November 2, 2021
I am not yet done with this book, but I've already gifted it to a number of friends! We can learn a lot about how to deal with water as a resource in the present and in the future by looking back at how civilizations have done so in the past. It's quite fascinating to consider how water has shaped societies and their beliefs, which is something I had never considered until it was laid out before me in this book.
This would make a great holiday gift for the history lover or environmentalist in your life.
Creb
4.0 out of 5 stars Scholarly Analysis of Water And Its Role In Civilization
Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2021
This is an extremely well written and well researched book. In some ways it reminds me of Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel”. Both cover a vast historical panorama and point to the importance of geography to the development of civilizations. For Diamond that was the North to South tilt of most mountain ranges while for Boccaletti it was water and the many forms it takes. Boccaletti is truly amazing in his mastery of multiple disciplines and the ease that he moves from one to another, weaving a very complex tapestry. Unfortunately for me, his level of scholarship was a challenge to follow, his level of detail obscured the larger picture, and his brilliance was more blinding than illuminating. Though I am sure there are many readers who are a good fit for this level of intellectual rigor, for me it became tiresome.
K. Conover
5.0 out of 5 stars A great review of geopolitics from the stone age until today
Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2022
Water: A Biography is Big History written in a mostly-accessible and engaging manner. While focusing on water, it emphasizes humans' relationship with water, and particularly as regards geopolitics. I can find only a few minor shortcomings.

While the book is lengthy, I would recommend making a bit longer (yes, I suspect eventually a second edition might emerge once this gets used as a textbook in college masters and Ph.D. programs). Specifically, I would recommend some footnotes with explanations of terms that a general reader might need otherwise to look up. (I’m happy that I’m reading this on the Android Kindle app, which makes it easy to look up words in a book.) Examples include autarky and Comintern.

He talks a lot about Italy (which makes sense as he was born there), but neglects Germany and particularly the Rhine and Ruhr Rivers entirely.

Nonetheless, one of those few nonfiction books that might make you stay up late reading.
April Rinne
5.0 out of 5 stars An H2O tour de force
Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2022
Wow. This is an incredibly rich, well-researched, thorough exploration of water's history ~ past, present, and future. For whatever you think you know about water, from the micro to the macro, this book will teach you something new. When we consider how vital (and precarious) water is to the future ~ individually and societally ~ it kind of feels like this should be required reading for humanity. Enthusiastically recommended.
Stu
4.0 out of 5 stars water as central to the economy and organization of “we the people “
Reviewed in the United States on November 13, 2023
A fascinating view of how we organize ourselves as a specie. And how we may destroy ourselves in the process.
Neil R
3.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive, but quite dense
Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2021
This book is clearly well researched. It is, in many ways, a retelling of world history, with a spotlight on the role of water and water-infrastructure at each stage. I wanted to enjoy it, but the vast scope of the material made it a bit of a slog.

If rating based on “did this book make me see the world differently,” I might give it four stars. I have a greater appreciation for some of the infrastructure that we’ve all heard about (Hoover Dam, Suez Canal, etc). But frankly, it was so dry that I can’t even remember the details of half the anecdotes. So it kind of fails the “will this make me feel cool at dinner parties” test.

Good historical context for anyone interested in infrastructure development, or political science though.
Hormone Doc
5.0 out of 5 stars Boccaletti is a deep scholar of how history unfolds
Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2021
I bought the book because I heard a brief interview with Boccaletti on the radio. Using water as the through line, his does a broad sweep of human history unfolding how societies and civilizations rise and fall. He brings this up to current times for the US, China and the current world. He has a deep understanding of the interconnections of humans, crops, drought, flood and politics over broad sweeps of time.
Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars A very interesting and comprehensive perspective on water's influence on social organizations.
Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2022
A very readable review of the interplay between access to water and forms of governance throughout history.

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