What Is Water?

The history of the modern idea of water – an idea whose consequences have helped produce a global crisis.

Choice:

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

David B. Brooks, Fresh Water, Friends of the Earth, Canada:

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.

Alex Loftus, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London:
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.

from the Foreword by Graeme Wynn:
Beginning a book as Jamie Linton does this one, with the claim that “water is what we make of it,” is an act of provocation ... Just as a stone thrown into a lake spreads ripples outward across its surface, so Linton’s provocation sends intellectual shock waves hammering into pervasive ways of understanding and defining water, invites reflection on the ways in which people have thought about water in the past, and heightens awareness of the consequences that will flow from what we make of water in the future.

Alex Loftus, Department of Geography, University of London:
The book demonstrates, in a clear and concise fashion, the ways in which contemporary social relationships with water have constituted a crisis ... The subject is of fundamental importance and the author’s emphasis on the need to posit environmental concerns within a socio-natural understanding is vital.