Synopses & Reviews
Rivers and Society explores the ways in which human/river relations have shaped important historical transformation processes. With examples ranging from explorations of classical agrarian civilizations such as the Indus, Angkor and Maya, to analyses of the role of water in the modernization process of countries such as Spain, Britain and Japan, the international contributors shed new light on the ways in which the key relationship between humans and water has given rise to new forms of social organization, new technologies and economic activities
About the Author
Terje Tvedt is Professo of Geography at the University of Bergen and Professor of Political Science at the University of Oslo. He is the author of The River Nile in the Age of the British and has co-directed and written two successful television documentaries on water.
Richard Coopey is with the Department of History at the University of Aberystwyth. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Arts.
Table of Contents
Water Systems and Development * A “Water Systems” Perspective on History -- Terje Tvedt and Richard Coopey * Water systems and Agricultural Civilizations * The Indus Civilisation and Riverine History in Northwestern India and Pakistan -- Gregory L. Possehl * The Development of the River Nile and the Egyptian Civilisation: A Water Historical Perspective -- Judith Bunbury * Osiris and the Egyptian Civilisation of Inundation. The Pyramids, the Pharaohs and their Water World -- Terje Oestigaard * The Maya Collapse: Water, Drought and Volcanoes -- Richardson P. Gill * The Mekong River System and the End of the Angkor Civilisation: A Water Historical Perspective -- Dan Penny * The historical evolution and anthropogenic influences on the Yellow River from ancient to modern times -- Qiang Zhang, Chong-Yu Xu, Tao Yang, Zhen-Chun Hao * Elemental Resources and Aquatic Ecosystems: Medieval Europeans and their Rivers -- Richard C. Hoffman * Nile River Flows and Political Order in Ottoman Egypt -- Fred H. Lawson * The aflaj of Oman and traditional timing of water shares -- Harriet Nash * Water systems and Development in the Early Modern Era * Water control in the Netherlands -- Jacobus De Vries * Changing societies produces changing rivers. Managing the Rhine in Germany and Holland in a changing environment -- Toon Bosch * River Regimes: Changing Environmental Relations along the Waterways of the Kanto Plain, Japan -- Roderick I. Wilson * Water and the British take-over of India -- Graham Chapman * The Neva as a Metropolitan River of Russia: Economy, Environment and Culture -- Alexei Kraikovski and Julia Lajus * A historic survey of the Danube catchment: From Classical civilisation to the end of the 19th Century -- Miklos Domokos * The Severn : Nature, Power and Rationalisation -- Richard Coopey * The history of flowing water policy in Sweden: from natural flow to industrialised rivers -- Eva Jakobsson * The hydraulic paradigm and the production of a new geography in Spain. Origins and Historical Evolution Between the Sixteenth and Twentieth centuries -- Leandro del Moral Ituarte * Venetian rivers after the fall of the republic. French and Austrian Hydrology -- Salvatore Ciriacono * Exploitation and Innovation Along the Lower Mississippi -- Martin Reuss