That Just Happened!

Shiva, Vandana. Water Wars: Privitization, Pollution, and Profit.  South End Press. 2002.

In Water Wars,  Vandana Shiva uses her remarkable knowledge of science and society to analyze the historical erosion of communal water rights.  Examining the international water trade, damming, mining, and aquafarming, Shiva exposes the destruction of the earth and the disenfranchisement of the world’s poor as they are stripped of their right to a precious common good.

Shiva reveals how many of the most important conflicts of our time, most often camouflaged as ethnic wars or religious wars, such as the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, are in fact conflicts over scarce but vital natural resources.

Water Wars  celebrates the spiritual and traditional role water has played in communities throughout history, and warns that water privatization threatens cultures and livelihoods worldwide.

 Back Cover

This book reads like a textbook.  I felt like I was in university again reading something I had to for class.  Although I think Shiva made some great points, there were so many facts and figures and annotations in the book, I felt it was a little dry.  There was no conversational tone to this book, it was more just a presentation of facts.  I did like how different aspects of the crisis were discussed:  from agriculture purposes to religious aspects of the water crisis.  I also liked how each chapter was self-contained and had it’s own footnote section at the end.

I would recommend this book if you were writing a paper for school, or really liked reading facts & figures.  It probably is not suitable for general interest in the topic.

I read this towards the 2010 Social Justice Challenge.