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The Three Ages of Water: Prehistoric Past, Imperiled Present, and a Hope for the Future Hardcover – June 13, 2023

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 46 ratings

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A revelatory account of how water has shaped the course of human life and history, and a positive vision of what the future can hold—if we act now
 
From the very creation of the planet billions of years ago to the present day, water has always been central to existence on Earth. And since long before the legendary Great Flood, it has been a defining force in the story of humanity.

In
The Three Ages of Water, Peter Gleick guides us through the long, fraught history of our relationship to this precious resource. Water has shaped civilizations and empires, and driven centuries of advances in science and technology—from agriculture to aqueducts, steam power to space exploration—and progress in health and medicine.
 
But the achievements that have propelled humanity forward also brought consequences, including unsustainable water use, ecological destruction, and global climate change, that now threaten to send us into a new dark age. We must change our ways, and quickly, to usher in a new age of water for the benefit of everyone. Drawing from the lessons of our past, Gleick charts a visionary path toward a sustainable future for water and the planet.
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“What a wonderful book! To understand water is to understand ourselves, our origins, and what lies ahead for us. Gleick tells the story of water in an accessible way that not only warns us about the dangers we are approaching, but also provides us with a vision for a hopeful future.”―Greta Thunberg

“Water made us, Peter Gleick writes in his magisterial history and future of hydrology and the human planet. But what will we do to it, and what will we make of it now? What we think of as the Anthropocene, and worry over as the coming of global warming, is in many mind-bending and demanding ways a crisis of water—though a soluble one. And there is no better guide to that crisis, or its solutions, than Gleick.”―
David Wallace-Wells, journalist and author of The Uninhabitable Earth

“Gleick lays out water’s central role in human history and in our future.
The Three Ages of Water is authoritative, far-ranging, and fascinating.”―Elizabeth Kolbert, journalist and author of Under a White Sky

“A magisterial read…crisp, well-crafted, and thoroughly engaging” and “If there’s anything about water that’s not covered in Gleick’s book, it’s probably not worth knowing.”―
Sierra

“He weaves together themes from archaeology, politics and environmental science to show both the need for and the attainable possibility of a sustainable, third age of water in the future.”―
Scientific American

“The honest name for our lovely blue planet probably should have been Water, since it covers most of the globe. And as Gleick makes clear in this sweeping, unprecedented, and positively necessary new book, our chances for a workable future depend on how seriously we take the oceans, lakes, rivers, and aquifers that surround us—indeed, that fill our own cells. This book will change your outlook in deep and motivating ways.”―
Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

“Gleick has delivered a book that provides a rich story of humanity’s interaction with water through a lens that helps us understand where we are today as we strive to balance all the demands we place on the planet’s water resources. His context of the past points to a future path that can ensure we strike this balance so everyone has access to water as a basic human right. The additional payoff is this book is accessible to all because of the way Gleick unfolds the story. It is a hopeful call to action grounded in fact, research, and analysis.”―
Gary White & Matt Damon, cofounders, Water.org & WaterEquity

“At a time of fraught political divisions and intensifying environmental disruptions, Gleick presents this timely and magisterial report on humankind’s use and misuse of water. He traces the incredible and varied ways water has been used from the earliest civilizations right up to our modern age. Unbelievable technical feats, he says, are now being overwhelmed by a changing climate and vast destruction of life-support systems. Humans now face, Gleick warns, a stark choice: grim, dystopian future or find a sustainable way to live with and manage water.”―
Jerry Brown, former governor of California

“Gleick buoyantly conveys just how special water is... with crucial recommendations for managing the world’s water."―
Booklist, starred review

“Thorough, meticulous, and eminently readable.”―
Library Journal, starred review

“[A] comprehensive overview of humanity's relationship with water.”―
The Arizona Republic

“Gleick’s book is an engaging, detailed and yet wide-ranging, authoritative exploration of the relationship between humans and water and how a positive sustainable world is within our reach.”―
Climate with Brian

“[A] timely read…this is more than just a clear-eyed history of our most precious resource; it’s also a guide for how to better manage it in the future.”―
Curbed

“[A] magisterial book.”―
Covering Climate Now

“A book likely to be on the nightstand of someone you admire.”―
Ralph Lauren Magazine

“A fascinating and timely examination…In the end, 
The Three Ages of Water provides a hopeful and practical vision for a more sustainable water future, one that supports human health, ecosystems, and economic development.”―Science

“An optimistic vision and manifesto for freshwater… [A] timely addition to a large number of works of advocacy, explanation and imagination on the manifold interactions and accelerating crises in humanity’s relation to water.” ―
Financial Times

 “With eloquence and practicality…essential book.” ―
Nature

"Very informative and engaging.” ―
The Water Droplet

“A journey of humanity’s triumphs and tribulations around water use, abuse, and the path to a sustainable future… This inspiring book provides a blueprint for a water-secure future… its positive outlook and vision resonated… I implore you to read the book and reflect on its wisdom.”―
Mike Promentilla

About the Author

Peter Gleick is perhaps the world’s most widely known and cited water expert. Educated at Yale and Berkeley, he went on to cofound the Pacific Institute, the leading independent research group devoted to reimagining water for a changing world. He is a scientist by training, winner of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” award, and an elected member of both the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2018 he was awarded the Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization. He lives in Berkeley, California. 

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ PublicAffairs (June 13, 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1541702271
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1541702271
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.45 x 1.19 x 9.6 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 46 ratings

About the author

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Peter H. Gleick
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Dr. Peter H. Gleick is co-founder, president-emeritus, and Senior Fellow of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, California. His research and writing address the critical connections between water and human health, the hydrologic impacts of climate change, sustainable water use, privatization and globalization, and international conflicts over water resources.

Dr. Gleick is an internationally recognized water expert and was named a MacArthur Fellow in October 2003 for his work. In 2006 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.

Gleick received a B.S. from Yale University and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He serves on the boards of numerous journals and organizations, and is the author of many scientific papers and thirteen books, including the biennial water report, "The World's Water," "Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water," "A Twenty-First Century U.S. Water Policy" (2012), and the new book "The Three Ages of Water: Prehistoric Past, Imperiled Present, and a Hope for the Future" (PublicAffairs, 2023).

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4.6 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2023
    Step right up, folks, for a Grand Tour of all things water, from the Big Bang to reverse osmosis. Thrill as life emerges from the primordial soup. Recoil in terror from 5000-year-old stories of the Great Flood. Marvel at early Mesopotamian water structures, Roman aqueducts, and the world’s first water laws. Folks, you’ll see French chemist Antoine Lavoisier prove that water is actually one part oxygen and two parts hydrogen. You’ll see John Snow remove the handle of the Broad Street pump to end a cholera epidemic. Your nerves will be on edge as John Leal chlorinates Jersey City’s water supply in just three months. Had enough? Well, hang on, because we’ll be wiping out entire ecosystems with our enormous dams, pumping fossil water from ancient aquifers to grow pistachios, setting rivers ablaze, poisoning Flint, Michigan, and recycling urine onboard the International Space Station. And just when you can’t take any more, we’ll calm you with an optimistic end-of-the-21st-century fantasy assessment of how we will NOT end up a dry, polluted dystopia but, through social, political, and environmental kumbaya, everything will turn out just fine. No, lady, you won’t get wet.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2023
    I love this book. I read a lot, mostly nonfiction, a range of subjects, and it's rare to find a book so compelling, especially in the sciences.

    Like many of us, I fear for future generations. We've been living among capitalism run amok. We're all doomed. But there is hope for the future - IF the youth of today take up the mantle.

    Best book I've read in years.

    Don't waste precious H2O while brushing your teeth. Do you really need a shower every day? Do you really need green grass around your home? Run for your local water board! Run for school board, and make sure young kids are learning about climate and preserving our blue marble.

    Just do it all and focus: We are less than a micron in the vast scale of a universe. We'll be gone like all living things on the planet. How are we any different from flies? Some of the musings this book will inspire.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2023
    As an old PA farmboy, I recall being happiest when we had enough water, but not too much.
    In California, we often have too little water, but sometimes too much in a short time, and thesame effecdt is seen increasingly here and other parts of the world, often amplified by climate change and sometimes by our own construction.
    People should read this book for its history, analysis of the current challenges, and a look forward to solutions.
  • Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2024
    Gleick knows what he is talking about. Nice to see his work in book-length format. The "three ages" approach is unique and helpful, making it easy to digest the content. Gleick has original ideas about how to proceed but also practical knowledge of the barriers.
  • Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2023
    Peter Gleick is the leading expert on water: its history, uses, and problems. For years, he edited "The World's Water," a series. Now he summarizes his life work in an accessible book that covers all the details and has the statistics but introduces human use and misuse of water--in irrigation, as carrier of disease, as basic to industry, and of course as basic to all life. The history is somewhat limited--it largely covers the old-time path from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Classical Greece and Rome and then down to western Europe; one wishes for more on China, India, Indigenous America, and other areas, including their management strategies, which often have much to teach modern water users.
    The real meat of the book is in the problems we now face. This is the end of the Second Age of Water, the one in which industry developed, irrigation became large-scale, and dams became huge. We are now at peak water, which Gleick classifies as three different peaks: peak renewable water, peak nonrenewable water, and peak ecological water. Basically, we are using up and losing more water than we can afford to lose, and will have to be much more efficient and careful in future. Particularly terrifying is the overdraft of fossil groundwater. This water has been accumulating for millennia, mostly in wetter times than now, and when it is gone it is gone forever. (Ground compaction often prevents renewal by more water seeping in.) Yet whole countries depend on it--especially Iran, which has very little water from rain.
    There is also the matter of conflict. Wendy Barnaby wrote a hopeful book in 2009 pointing out that conflicts over water have generally been resolved. Alas, since then, conflicts have increased exponentially. Getting back to Iran--the whole region of Sistan (central eastern Iran) depends on the Helmand River, flowing in from Afghanistan. The Taliban threaten to take all the water, with minimal concern for the survival of Sistan.
    Gleick has all the solutions--efficiency, recycling, regulations--but no ideas on how to convince reactionary totalitarian politicians to act responsibly.
    If we do not solve the world water problem soon, there will be a world economic crisis around 2050, when irrigation reaches a limit and food production begins to decline. Politicians must be convinced to take this seriously.
    4 people found this helpful
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