I have read many of Fagan’s
books. His specialty is tracing ancient
climates and the relationship of climate and culture. They are excellent books – I recommend THE
GREAT WARMING and THE LITTLE ICE AGE. In
this book he is moved by the potential for disaster that faces a warming planet
where we have been engaged in massive overconsumption of water. He is hoping that we find outselves become
aware of the importance and conservation of this essential liquid.
He works first with gravity, the
ability to challenge gravity to pump the underground resources, while other
ancients used gravity for distribution of water and use of water.
Ritual and water management is his
second theme. It is about cleansing,
renewal, and our awe and reverence for water.
It is also about the use of water, the day to day consumption and
waste. Baptism with holy waters;
Egyptians and Mayans looked to the waters of the primordial for Earth’s
beginnings; and Bronze Age farmers thought their ancestors were below the
waters of the ocean.
The final theme is about the use of
technology to overuse and consume all forms of water and its use to reclaim the
water we damage.
Fagan believes we can learn about
what we need to do in the future by looking back at the history of water
use. For example – the Mayans died off
from drought, but the Inca’s prospered in a much drier and more challenging
climate.
There are still ancient societies
that use water in a sustainable way, but can they resist the greed of the
industrial world? History teaches that
the societies that last the longest are those who treat water with the greatest
respect.
Water wheels, weirs, drainage ditches, wells, pumps: The list of devices and strategies for use of water is long and examined in this book, but the issue is not devices, but rather the limited amount of water that is available and recognition of the impact of events like deforestation, global warming, and over consumption that is essential for the future. The crisis for water in the future is obvious, the examples of the past where the cultures were successful and not just for a short time had a reverence for water and a respect of nature.
Later societies
took advantage of their military strength to control the flow of water and its
distribution and then the city-states, and nations found religions that could
justify their actions.
“Elixir spans five thousand years, from the beginnings of civilization to the parched American Sun Belt of today. It is a story of human endeavor: our present-day interaction with this most essential resource has deep roots in the remote past, and every human culture has been shaped by its relationship to water. For the earliest hunter-gatherers, knowing where to find water was a matter of life and death; the "songlines" of Australia's Aborigines define the whole landscape as a map of sacred water sources. In many agricultural societies, from Africa to the rice fields of Bali, a communal "water philosophy" surrounds the precious resource with social traditions that preserve fair access for people upstream and down. The sweeping narrative moves from the Greeks and Romans, whose mighty acqueducts still water modern cities, to China, where emperors marshaled armies of laborers in a centuries-long struggle, still ongoing today, to tame the country's powerful rivers. Medieval Europe and then the Industrial Revolution brought ingenious new solutions to water management---but, for the first time, turned water into a commodity to be bought, sold, and exploited rather than a natural force to be worshiped and husbanded. By the twentieth century, technology allowed the American desert to sparkle with swimming pools and lush golf courses---with little regard for sustainability. With his customary elegance and peerless scholarship, Brian Fagan illustrates that the past teaches us that technologies for solving one or another water problem are not enough. From a practical standpoint, we still live at the mercy of the natural world. To solve the water crises of the future we may need to adapt the water ethos of our ancestors.” Audible.com
“Elixir spans five thousand years, from the beginnings of civilization to the parched American Sun Belt of today. It is a story of human endeavor: our present-day interaction with this most essential resource has deep roots in the remote past, and every human culture has been shaped by its relationship to water. For the earliest hunter-gatherers, knowing where to find water was a matter of life and death; the "songlines" of Australia's Aborigines define the whole landscape as a map of sacred water sources. In many agricultural societies, from Africa to the rice fields of Bali, a communal "water philosophy" surrounds the precious resource with social traditions that preserve fair access for people upstream and down. The sweeping narrative moves from the Greeks and Romans, whose mighty acqueducts still water modern cities, to China, where emperors marshaled armies of laborers in a centuries-long struggle, still ongoing today, to tame the country's powerful rivers. Medieval Europe and then the Industrial Revolution brought ingenious new solutions to water management---but, for the first time, turned water into a commodity to be bought, sold, and exploited rather than a natural force to be worshiped and husbanded. By the twentieth century, technology allowed the American desert to sparkle with swimming pools and lush golf courses---with little regard for sustainability. With his customary elegance and peerless scholarship, Brian Fagan illustrates that the past teaches us that technologies for solving one or another water problem are not enough. From a practical standpoint, we still live at the mercy of the natural world. To solve the water crises of the future we may need to adapt the water ethos of our ancestors.” Audible.com
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