“This sweeping history follows the twisting flow of water through human history, shaping lives over thousands of years, playing a key role in the rise and fall of civilizations, testing the skills of generation after generation, generating conflict and promoting cooperation,. Steve Solomon also defines the critical challenges of water — and the need for new thinking — for nations and peoples around the world, both for today and in the future.”
—Daniel Yergin, author of The Prize: the Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power
“I read this wide-ranging and thoughtful book while sitting on the banks of the Ganges near Varanasi—it’s a river already badly polluted, and now threatened by the melting of the loss of the glaciers at its source to global warming. Four hundred million people depend on it, and there’s no backup plan. As Steven Solomon makes clear, the same is true the world over; this volume will give you the background to understand the forces that will drive much of 21st century history.”
—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
“Steven Solomon has written a riveting historical manifesto on behalf of Water Power. His sweeping narrative, covering centuries, is awe-inspiring. I learned a tremendous amount of usable knowledge from this fine work.”
— Douglas Brinkley, author of The Wilderness Warrior
“Solomon’s soaring account of our attempt to manage earth’s total environment over millennia never neglects the individuals, inventions, and initiatives pivotal to that effort. WATER is the most alarming and compelling call to action I’ve read since Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.”
— Linda Lear, author of Rachel Carson
“This is a fascinating and provocative work of history that shines new light on what is probably the biggest environmental and political challenge of our time. With penetrating insight and narrative grace, Steven Solomon’s brilliant book reveals how today’s planetary crisis of freshwater scarcity is recasting the world order and the societies in which we live.”
— Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., author of Crimes Against Nature
“The Al Gore of Water”
—Morning Joe, MSNBC-TV
“Makes a convincing case”
— All Things Considered, NPR
“Solomon’s book is a seminal study from which readers should be able to grasp the larger issues of water in the 21st century…outstanding…highly readable.”
— The Seattle Times
Steven Solomon's Water Blog Homepage 
“Wow…the all inclusive history of water and how it has shaped the world we live in. Lessons to be learned, as we move from a world where we all thought there was an endless supply of all the resourses we need to inhabit this little planet called earth…to the challenges and issues loom just ahead. Soloman captures the simplicity of why we need water, to the complexity of how it has built nations, destroyed cultures and generally driven history as we have come to know it. For those of us in the trenches dealing with the “new normal” a must read for historical and future casting perspectives.
By: Dale R. Dekker, AIA, AICP on March 22, 2010
at 3:08 am
Excellent book, on the value of water. Highly recommended reading for policy makers.
By: K E Seetharam on December 19, 2011
at 9:42 am