What Is Water?

The History of a Modern Abstraction

By: Jamie Linton

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Hardcover | 15 January 2010

At a Glance

Hardcover
352 Pages

Age
22+

Dimensions(cm)
23.6 x 16.6 x 2.7

Hardcover

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We all know what water is and many of us take it for granted. But because it seems so natural, the way we see water is seldom given critical attention. This book provides a much-needed analysis of how we view water, showing that modern understandings have given rise to a global crisis. Jamie Linton argues that modern Western society tends to understand water as a scientific abstraction - as merely H20 or the substance occurring in the hydrologic cycle. We have lost sight of its essential fecundity and stripped it of its wider environmental, social, and cultural contexts. This removal, or abstraction, has given modern society license to treat water as something that may dammed, diverted, and manipulated with impunity. The water crisis can be averted, Linton concludes, by deliberately reinvesting water with social content.

Industry Reviews

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. -- Alex Loftus, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London * The Geographical Journal *

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.

-- David B. Brooks, Fresh Water, Friends of the Earth, Canada * Critical Policy Studies, Vol. 4, No. 4 *

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

-- Choice * I.D. Sasowsky, University of Akron *
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. -- Olivier Graefe, University of Fribourg * Social & Cultural Geography *

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