The Water Kingdom: A Secret History of China by Philip Ball
The Water Kingdom takes us on a grand journey through China’s past and present, offering a unique window through which we can begin to grasp the overwhelming complexity and teeming energy of the country and its people.
Water is the key that unlocks much of China’s history and thought. The ubiquitous relationship that the Chinese people have had with water has made it an enduring metaphor for philosophical thought and artistic expression. From the Han emperors to Mao, the ability to manage the waters – to provide irrigation and defend against floods – became a barometer of political legitimacy, and attempts to do so have involved engineering works on a gigantic scale. Yet the strain that economic growth is putting on its water resources today may be the greatest threat to China’s future.
A History Book of the Year in The Times and The Economist
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The Water Kingdom is an epic, spellbinding story. Our guides are travellers and explorers, poets and painters, bureaucrats and activists, who have themselves struggled to come to terms with living in a world so shaped and permeated by water.
University of Chicago Press (2017) Hardcover ISBN 0-226-36920-X