Books: Water By Marq de Villiers

After reading these tales of the ruinous river diversions of Soviet planners and American water experts, you might conclude that ecological ignorance unites all nations. Misanthropes will hoot as governments simultaneously beggar their neighbors and poison their own wells. With a brutal accounting looming for our profligate misuse of earth’s amniotic fluid, the author offers ways that countries can secure more supplies. The most likely scenario is an old standby: steal water from others.

–By Eugene Linden