Water in North American Environmental History

by Martin V. Melosi

Water in North American Environmental History offers 25 cases studies that explore the range of uses and perceptions of water throughout Canadian, Mexican, and United States history. Water has served a myriad of purposes historically as human sustenance, agricultural irrigation, sanitation, fire protection, military defense, power generation, transportation, and much more. Water and its uses provide an excellent entrée into the study of humans and the environment, not only because water is a vital resource for life, but also because water as a medium is so intimately woven into the everyday experiences of humans and into society’s economic, political, and social fabric. A North American perspective is not representative of the world’s water use, but it is an area with a linked history and many overlapping human and environmental features and concerns. With a continental perspective, the book explores many disparate topics without being confined to the history and experiences of just one country. The chapters are short, but descriptive, and departure points for what they tell us about the human experience in dealing with water and the environmental implications of water use. The text leads students to consider water in relation to society, and to the past. The book will be of interest to students of environmental history, geography, and the environmental sciences.

294 pages, Paperback

Published June 6, 2022

About the author

Martin Victor Melosi is Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen University Professor and the director of the Center for Public History at the University of Houston in Houston, Texas.

Reviews

[Jindřich Zapletal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really neat textbook structured for the usual US university reading class format. A couple of the case studies are somewhat insipid, but absolutely most are something that every educated American should know about, and they are reflected in this or that way in every country. The treatment is introductory and motivational, each case study is followed by a more specialized reading list, and all items I tested from those lists were great. Recommended!