Nature Conservancy Magazine, Recommended Reading and Review, Autumn 2010 Steven Solomon’s WATER: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization.
Excerpt: Steven Solomon relays the history of what is arguably Earth’s most precious resources. When Solomon traveled to Kenya in 2004, he witnessed firsthand the crippling effect that a lack of water can have on a family, a community, a society. Thus he views water as an “agent of change” and “man’s most indispensable natural resource”…Solomon’s comprehensive history looks at the importance of water from the earliest civilizations to the rise of Europe, from the Industrial Revolution to today, a period he calls the “Age of Scarcity”. As human population approaches 9 billion, he says, water is an every more precious, ever more limited resource.

Watch Steven Solomon’s 3 part interview for Rainmakers TV documentary in collaboration with PBS’ KBTC: http://www.rainmakers.tv/StevenSolomon.html

Read Steven Solomon’s blog in Grist.org on the occasion of World Blog Action Day, October 15. This year’s topic: Water “Redesigning Our Cities for the Dawning Age of Global Freshwater Scarcity” October 15, 2010 http://www.grist.org/article/2010-10-14-redesigning-our-cities-for-the-dawning-age-of-global-freshwater/

“The Struggle for Asia’s Water”
Read Steven Solomon’s article in Forbes’ special 10 year look ahead issue, September 9, 2010 http://www.forbes.com/2010/09/09/water-china-tibet-2020-opinions-contributors-steven-solomon.html

Review of WATER: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power & Civilization in Foreign Affairs September-October 2010 http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66578/james-e-nickum/hydraulic-pressures?page=show

Around the Water Cooler, Blog Talk Radio, Listen to the interview with Steven Solomon http://www.blogtalkradio.com/aroundthewatercooler/2010/10/13/1130-am-et-830-pt October 13, 2010

Given the rapid melting of the Himalayan glaciers that feed the Indus River — a possible contributor to the current floods — and growing tensions with upriver archenemy India about use of the river’s tributaries, it’s unlikely that Pakistani food production will long keep pace with the growing population.

Read the rest of the article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/opinion/16solomon.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

Steven Solomon on BBC News TV
Water shortages ‘a global problem’
March 25, 2010
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/world_news_america/8588023.stm

Steven Solomon on TAVIS SMILEY, PBS-TV
Earth Day April 22, 2010
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/201004/20100422_solomon.html
(Short Clip, Full Clip, Transcript)
Steven Solomon’s Special Earth Day Blog on the Water Crisis
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/voices/2010/04/freshwater-scarcity-the-greatest-crisis-most-americans-have-never-heard-of.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pbs%2Fkcet%2Ftavissmiley%2Fvoices-blog+%28kcet%2Ftavissmiley%2Fvoices-blog%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
Steven Solomon’s Earth Day post ‘Earth’s Vital Ecosystems’ US State Department 4.1.10
http://www.america.gov/earthday_2010.html
http://www.america.gov/st/energy-english/2010/April/20100416155444xnyazriahs0.408775.html

Steven Solomon speech at Carnegie Council
March 31, 2010
(video, audio, transcript)
“Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization”
http://www.cceia.org/resources/transcripts/0272.html

Steven Solomon on AirTalk with Larry Mantle, KPCC (Los Angeles), April 20, 2010
http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2010/04/20/the-epic-struggle-for-water/
Audio only: http://media.scpr.org/audio/upload/2010/04/20/20100420_airtalk_water.mp3

Sierra Magazine “Fresh, Clean, and Scarce: Tracking the Growing Global Water Crisis” by Steven Solomon
Mixed Media  May/June 2010
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/201005/mixedmedia.aspx#fresh

A Conversation with Steven Solomon — WORLD WATER DAY Special!
Webcast: THE BOOK STUDIO w/Bethanne Patrick
Mon, 03/22/2010
http://www.thebookstudio.com/blog/bethanne/conversation-steve-solomon-world-water-day-special

Reuters:  Interview with Steven Solomon, author of WATER: The Epic Struggle For Wealth, Power, and Civilization
“Looking at water crisis through lens of history”
April 23, 2010
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN22108790

L.A. Times article on Steven Solomon at L.A. Times Book Festival,
Los Angeles April 24, 2010
Water: the new oil? Authors Solomon and Price discuss the dwindling resource
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2010/04/water-preservation-and-more-efficient-management-of-this-dwindling-resource-was-a-running-theme-in-saturdays-panel-discussion.html

STEVEN SOLOMON SPEECH at Zócalo Public Square at Rand Corp, Los Angeles
April 19, 2010
Why Water is The New Oil
(summary): http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/thepublicsquare/2010/04/19/why-water-is-the-new-oil/(video): http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/thepublicsquare/2010/04/19/why-water-is-the-new-oil/

Fox News TV –  Earth Day Interview with Steven Solomon (no archive)

STEVEN SOLOMON at World Policy Institute New York, NY
April 13, 2010
Water Wars:  Beyond the Blue Revolution
http://www.worldpolicy.org/water-wars

Author Steven Solomon has suggested our country needs an Al Gore for water – an advocate who will do for water what the former vice president has done for climate change. Solomon just might be the voice we need to focus public attention on the problems – and solutions – for the future of clean water.

In his new book, Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization, Solomon paints a vivid picture of how water has shaped our history and how it is playing an increasingly vital role in our national security.

While leaders in Washington have been war-gaming the national security risks of climate change, they’ve only started to connect the dots to the closely related threats emanating from the growing crisis of global freshwater scarcity. At first blush, water and national security may not seem to be interlinked. But the reality, as narrated in my new book WATER: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization, is that the unfolding global water crisis increasingly influences the outcome of America’s two wars, homeland defense against international terrorism, and other key U.S. national-security interests, including the transforming planetary environment and world geopolitical order.

“…Well-written volume that covers the whole sweep of history is a tour de force.”
—”The Green in the Machine” by David G. Victor February 23, 2010

“Top 10 Books of the Environment: 2010″ selection
—  Booklist February 15, 2010

Read the entire review at: http://aquadoc.typepad.com/waterwired/2010/02/review-steven-solomons-water.html

Earlier this year I posted my’non-review’ of Steven Solomon’s book, Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power and Civilization. It took me a while to get around to it but I finished it about a week ago and have been letting it ‘settle’ before penning this review.
My brief assessment: read it! I enjoyed it and recommend it highly. It’s well-written and well-documented: almost 100 pages (out of about 600) of notes, citations, and index. The book was reminiscent of Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel.
Now, the details.
Solomon’s book has done what no recent water book has done, and that’s provide a ‘history of water’, or more correctly, the role of water in world history.

Solomon’s intelligent, well-informed assessment of the challenges we face today grows naturally from the comprehensive analysis that precedes it in the first three sections: “Water in Ancient History,” “Water and the Ascendancy of the West,” “Water and the Making of the Modern Industrial Society.” The author astutely synthesizes a vast amount of scholarship to spotlight recurring patterns.

Ranging across several millenniums and dozens of cultures, Solomon offers thought-provoking material on nearly every page, leavening the abundant facts and figures with a judicious sprinkling of colorful anecdotes.

Real Media
Water is quickly replacing oil as our most valuable natural resource. Freshwater scarcity affects public health, national security and the global economy. A panel joins Diane to examine how control and distribution of water will affect future domestic and foreign policies.

Guests:
Steven Solomon, journalist and author of the recently published “Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization” and “The Confidence Game.”

Geoff Dabelko, director of environmental change and security at the Wilson Center.

Julia Bucknall, manager of the central water unit of the World Bank.

The Diane Rehm Show: http://wamu.org/programs/dr/