Water and Society

Changing Perceptions of Societal and Historical Development

Terje Tvedt

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780857739049
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Environmental Law
• Index: Law

Despite the central importance that water has held for civilizations both ancient and modern, its social significance has made surprisingly little impact on our contemporary understanding of human history and development. Dominant interpretations of the relationship between society and nature have remained water blind. In Water and Society historian and leading water expert Terje Tvedt argues for a change that acknowledges the significant role played by water in societal development. Reflecting his expertise as a geographer, historian and a political scientist, and drawing on his wide experience of water issues around the world, Terje Tvedt s Water and Society provides a long overdue reappraisal of the relationship between water and society, one that gives water its rightful place as central to any true understanding of human history and development."

Table of contents

• Author Bibliography
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1. The Need for a Paradigm Shift
• 2. Water-Society Systems and the Success of the West
• 3. Rivers and Empire
• 4. Religion and the Enigma of Water
• 5. Between the Hydrological and Hydrosocial Cycle: The History of Cities
• 6. Water, Sovereignty and the Myth of Westphalia
• 7. Water and International Law
• 8. Water-Society Relations and the History of the Long Term
• 9. Water and Climate Change
• 10. A Critique of the Social Science Tradition
• Epilogue: ‘An Unstable Foundation of Running Water’
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography