The author tells the story of our most vital resource and how it has shaped our history, tracing three ages of water. The book spans five millennia, from ancient Mesopotamia to the parched present of the Sun Belt. As the author shows, every human society has been shaped by its relationship to our most essential resource. This narrative moves across the world, from ancient Greece and Rome, whose mighty aqueducts still supply modern cities, to China,...

With his customary elegance and peerless scholarship, Brian Fagan illustrates that the past teaches people that technologies for solving one or another water problem are not enough. From a practical standpoint, humans still live at the mercy of the natural world. To solve the water crises of the future people may need to adapt the water ethos of their ancestors.