WATER: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization - STEVEN SOLOMON

With freshwater overtaking oil as the world's scarcest critical resource, Steven Solomon's dramatic narrative WATER: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power and Civilization may be the most important book you will read this year.

EARLY PRAISE HAS BEEN PHENOMENAL "This sweeping history follows the twisting flow of water through human history, shaping lives over thousands of years, playing a key role in the rise and fall of civilizations, testing the skills of generation after generation, generating conflict and promoting cooperation,. Steve Solomon also defines the critical challenges of water - and the need for new thinking - for nations and peoples around the world, both for today and in the future."
- Daniel Yergin, author of The Prize: the Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power

"I read this wide-ranging and thoughtful book while sitting on the banks of the Ganges near Varanasi- it's a river already badly polluted, and now threatened by the melting of the loss of the glaciers at its source to global warming. Four hundred million people depend on it, and there's no backup plan. As Steven Solomon makes clear, the same is true the world over; this volume will give you the background to understand the forces that will drive much of 21st century history."
- Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

"Steven Solomon has written a riveting historical manifesto on behalf of Water Power. His sweeping narrative, covering centuries, is awe-inspiring. I learned a tremendous amount of usable knowledge from this fine work."
- Douglas Brinkley, author of The Wilderness Warrior

"Solomon's soaring account of our attempt to manage earth's total environment over millennia never neglects the individuals, inventions, and initiatives pivotal to that effort. WATER is the most alarming and compelling call to action I've read since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring."
- Linda Lear, author of Rachel Carson

"This is a fascinating and provocative work of history that shines new light on what is probably the biggest environmental and political challenge of our time. With penetrating insight and narrative grace, Steven Solomon's brilliant book reveals how today's planetary crisis of freshwater scarcity is recasting the world order and the societies in which we live."
- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., author of Crimes Against Nature

" . . .. unprecedented, all-encompassing, and resounding inquiry into the science and politics of water . . . .Seeking to inspire us to place a higher value on water and establish wiser approaches to its use, Solomon has created a brilliantly discursive and compelling epic of humankind's most vital resource."
- Booklist, *Starred Review*

"Solomon (The Confidence Game) advances a persuasive argument: the prosperity of nations and empires has depended on their access to water and their ability to harness water resources. . .. . and makes a compelling case that the U.S. and other leading democracies have untapped strategic advantages that will only become more significant as water becomes scarcer."
- Publishers Weekly

---

"When the well is dry, we learn the worth of water"- Ben Franklin's pragmatic warning resonates more ominously today than ever before. Across the world, scarcity has made freshwater the new oil. Life and death struggles for diminishing supplies of man's irreplaceable resource - depleting water ecosystems, water famines, and acute disparities between water Haves and Have-Nots - have become driving fulcrums of the transforming 21st century world order.

Balances of power, environmental sustainability, sufficiency of food and energy supplies, and contagion from epidemic diseases, terrorism, and humanitarian crises are at stake. Is there enough freshwater for 9 billion of us by 2050? What can we do about it?

Veteran journalist and author Steven Solomon colorfully narrates the lessons of water history that have shaped epic turning points in the rise and fall of great powers since the start of civilization to describe today's great water challenges in his seminal book, WATER: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization (Harper/HarperCollins Publishers). Like Daniel Yergin's book The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power, or Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Steven Solomon's WATER will be essential reading for anyone who loves history, politics, economics, or cares about the future of our planet and its inhabitants.

Steven Solomon has written for The New York Times, BusinessWeek, The Economist, Forbes, and Esquire. He has been a regular commentator on NPR's Marketplace, and has appeared as a featured guest on the late Tim Russert's CNBC show, NPR's Talk of the Nation, Bloomberg TV, and on many other news shows. He has addressed the World Affairs Council, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and university forums. He is the author of The Confidence Game, which presciently warned about building dangers in the volatile global financial system. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his family.