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More copies of this ISBN:This title in other formats:Deep Water: The Epic Struggle Over Dams, Displaced People, and the Environmentby Jacques Leslie
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:"If the wars of the last century were fought over oil, the wars of this century will be fought over water." -Ismail Serageldin, The World Bank The giant dams of today are the modern Pyramids, colossally expensive edifices that generate monumental amounts of electricity, irrigated water, and environmental and social disaster. With Deep Water, Jacques Leslie offers a searching account of the current crisis over dams and the world's water. An emerging master of long-form reportage, Leslie makes the crisis vivid through the stories of three distinctive figures: Medha Patkar, an Indian activist who opposes a dam that will displace thousands of people in western India; Thayer Scudder, an American anthropologist who studies the effects of giant dams on the peoples of southern Africa; and Don Blackmore, an Australian water manager who struggles to reverse the effects of drought so as to allow Australia to continue its march to California-like prosperity. Taking the reader to the sites of controversial dams, Leslie shows why dams are at once the hope of developing nations and a blight on their people and landscape. Deep Water is an incisive, beautifully written, and deeply disquieting report on a conflict that threatens to divide the world in the coming years. Review:"This worthy but difficult book looks at large dams and their consequences through the eyes of three members of the 1990s' World Commission on Dams. Indian activist Medha Patkar planned to drown herself to protest the Sardar Sarovar dam's displacement of several hundred thousand people. Thayer Scudder, a dam resettlement expert and consultant to the World Bank, stopped a dam that would have destroyed Botswana's Okavango Delta. Don Blackmore, in Australia, where dams are a virtual necessity, has to regulate 'the dozens of variables that affect the health of a river basin' during an acute drought. Leslie's (The Mark: A War Correspondent's Memoir of Vietnam and Cambodia) intent was to 'see dams whole,' and he conveys the complex, disheartening issues surrounding them. Whether the reader can see dams whole is another question. Leslie is capable of both punchy and lyrical writing. But with the flood of detail, from the mechanics of dam financing to the water sources for African villages, the book becomes a hard slog. A draft of this unquestionably informative and eye-opening book won the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, but it will need a devoted reader to get the last drop of good out of it. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Synopsis:Taking the reader to the sites of controversial dams, Leslie shows why dams are at once the hope of developing nations and a blight on their people and landscape. About the AuthorJacques Leslie is the author of The Mark: A War Correspondent's Memoir of Vietnam and Cambodia. A draft of Deep Water has won the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, judged by Ted Conover, Sara Mosle, and Jonathan Harr. Leslie lives in Mill Valley, California. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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