Far more than oil, the control of water wealth throughout history has been pivotal to the rise and fall of great powers, the achievements of civilization, the transformations of society’s vital habitats, and the quality of ordinary daily lives. In Water, Steven Solomon offers the first-ever narrative portrait of the power struggles, personalities, and breakthroughs that have shaped humanity from antiquity’s earliest civilizations, the Roman Empire, medieval China, and Islam’s golden age to Europe’s rise, the steam-powered Industrial Revolution, and America’s century. Today, freshwater scarcity is one of the twenty-first century’s decisive, looming challenges and is driving the new political, economic, and environmental realities across the globe.
As modern society runs short of its most indispensable resource and the planet’s renewable water ecosystems grow depleted, an explosive new fault line is dividing humanity into water Haves and Have-nots. Genocides, epidemic diseases, failed states, and civil warfare increasingly emanate from water-starved, overpopulated parts of Africa and Asia. Water famines threaten to ignite new wars in the bone-dry Middle East. Faltering clean water supplies menace the sustainable growth and ability of China and India to feed themselves. Water scarcity is inseparably interrelated to the global crises of energy, food, and climate change. For Western democracies, water represents no less than the new oil—demanding a major rethink of basic domestic and foreign policies—but also offering a momentous opportunity to relaunch wealth and global leadership through exploiting a comparative advantage in freshwater reserves. Meticulously researched and masterfully written, Steven Solomon’s Water is a groundbreaking account of man’s most critical resource in shaping human destinies, from ancient times to our dawning age of water scarcity.
Steven Solomon's Water Blog Homepage 
Hi Steve,
I heard you on NPR recently and wondered if you are interested in supporting a US energy policy which limits water usage. Our organization advocates for stronger appliance efficiency standards. There’s a great opportunity this spring/summer to influence the Department of Energy’s rulemaking on clothes washers. By setting a strong water efficiency factor, the DOE could set the US on track to save 273 billion gallons of water in 2020 and 546 billion gallons in 2030. Wondered if you’d be willing to sign on to a letter in support of a strong water efficiency factor for washers.
Marianne DiMascio
Appliance Standards Awareness Project
By: Marianne DiMascio on January 12, 2010
at 6:06 pm
Very important work. Listened to your interview on KUOW Seattle this morning.
By: Nick Powell on March 23, 2010
at 5:36 pm
Listening to your speech at the Carnegie Council now and just ordered your book. Looking forward to reading it and using it for future projects.
By: Raul David Avalos on April 7, 2010
at 2:50 pm
Thank you, Raul, for your comment and interest. Best Regards, STEVE
By: snsolomon on April 7, 2010
at 4:48 pm
Hey Steve,
Thanks again for taking some time to come up to New York during the CGI week for an interview with RAINMAKERS TELEVISION. Your interview is now edited and posted in a 3-part series on the RAINMAKERS website at:
http://www.rainmakers.tv/StevenSolomon.html
Keep up the great work!
Greg
writer/director/producer
Rainmakers Television
By: Greg Walsh on October 18, 2010
at 12:47 am
Steve,
Just updating the link to the Rainmakers TV 3-Part Interview with you during the CGI Conference in New York.
http://rainmakers.tv/steven-solomon-author-cgi-2010-part-1/
Your book and your work continue to inspire and raise awareness.
Thanks again for taking the time to do the interview.
Greg
By: Greg Walsh on May 7, 2018
at 6:35 am
[…] recently did an interview with author Steven Solomon, on his new book WATER: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilizations. In it he talks about freshwater resource depletion and population growth, and it’s affect […]
By: What will 2020 bring? 50 million environmental refugees on February 28, 2011
at 3:01 pm
I will be assigning this book to my world civ history students. I am looking for any first hand accounts related to water in the 19th and 20th centuries, too. This is new for me and thank you so much for this work and to the others who have replied here for their vigilance.
Renee Bricker, Ph.D.
rbricker@northgeorgia.edu
By: Renee Bricker on July 7, 2011
at 4:38 pm
Thank you for all the work you put into your monumental book on water, it has inspired me to focus my work on raising awareness about water and it’s fundamental importance. Many things in world politics became clear as water for the first time.. I can’t thank you enough. I will recommend your book to all, it should be in the curriculum of ever high school student.
napo
By: Napoleon Brousseau on February 1, 2012
at 3:41 pm
According to The Steven Solomon, the 21st century will be the century of proxy and direct wars over water issues. Therefore I select this topic “Water Resources of Pakhtunkhwa (Pakistan)” It will become an informative and researched document regarding water issues. The inspiration of my research is only the predictions of Steven Solomon about the water issues.
Thanks Steven Solomon
I read you as a reference in some articles.
Regard
Akbar Hoti
Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan
By: Akbar Hoti on July 13, 2016
at 9:07 am
I found Water a fascinating book and perhaps it could act as the Silent Spring of Rachel Carson which I read when it was published. I agree with your conclusion that Democratic countries will find an innovative solution to solve their own problems.
As a kid in South Africa in 1961 I was at an exhibit of the models of the great dams that were being build on the rivers there. By 1980 a friend, engineer told me that those dams build in a high altitude and dry climate were not giving the results planned.
I live in Israel where today 60% of our water comes from desal and lot agricultural water is recycled city water. Today everyone here pays the real cost of water. I look at the Mediterranean Sea and see that Israel’s beaches are being washed away because of Egypt’s Aswan Dam. In mid summer when the water reaches 31C we have a medusa problem that started 25 years ago, and the power station sucks in truck loads of medusa that are frozen and exported to Japan.
In my lifetime I have seen the effects of mans manipulation the environment.
By: Ronnie Feldman on May 19, 2018
at 4:38 pm