What People are Saying About This
Richard A. Walker
Scholars trying to unlock the secrets of growth, state-making, and modernization should never overlook the magical powers of natural resources. In arid lands, water is the key, as this riveting story shows. The thirst for water in Spain brought together the sirens of liberalism, fascist technocrats, and bulldozers of modernity to build a twentieth-century nation.
Joan Martinez-Alier
In this thoroughly researched book, a top world scholar, perhaps the top world scholar in the political ecology of water conflicts, shows the continuities in water policies in Spain over one hundred years, including the thirty-five years of the Franco regime. Erik Swyngedouw analyzes how class and regional political struggles over access to water overlapped with a persistent official engineering approach to water management, whereby the ecology of rivers was sacrificed (under Fascist or democratic régimes) to economic interests and state power.
Endorsement
In this thoroughly researched book, a top world scholar, perhaps the top world scholar in the political ecology of water conflicts, shows the continuities in water policies in Spain over one hundred years, including the thirty-five years of the Franco regime. Erik Swyngedouw analyzes how class and regional political struggles over access to water overlapped with a persistent official engineering approach to water management, whereby the ecology of rivers was sacrificed (under Fascist or democratic régimes) to economic interests and state power.
—Joan Martinez-Alier, Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
From the Publisher
Liquid Power is a momentous addition to the annals of hydraulic state-making. Swyngedouw's sparkling analysis of water management and hydro-politics is epic in scope and decisive in detail. I can guarantee readers they won't ever see Spain the same way again.
—Andrew Ross, author of Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World's Least Sustainable City
Scholars trying to unlock the secrets of growth, state-making, and modernization should never overlook the magical powers of natural resources. In arid lands, water is the key, as this riveting story shows. The thirst for water in Spain brought together the sirens of liberalism, fascist technocrats, and bulldozers of modernity to build a twentieth-century nation.
—Richard A. Walker, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley, and author of The Capitalist Imperative, The Country in the City, and The Conquest of Bread
In this remarkable book, Swyngedouw weaves together the intersecting flows of capital, power, and water, which have imprinted both the cultural and material face of modern Spain. Liquid Power is a tour de force.
—Matthew Gandy, Professor of Geography, University College London, and author of The Fabric of Space: Water, Modernity, and the Urban Imagination
In this thoroughly researched book, a top world scholar, perhaps the top world scholar in the political ecology of water conflicts, shows the continuities in water policies in Spain over one hundred years, including the thirty-five years of the Franco regime. Erik Swyngedouw analyzes how class and regional political struggles over access to water overlapped with a persistent official engineering approach to water management, whereby the ecology of rivers was sacrificed (under Fascist or democratic régimes) to economic interests and state power.
—Joan Martinez-Alier, Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Matthew Gandy
In this remarkable book, Swyngedouw weaves together the intersecting flows of capital, power, and water, which have imprinted both the cultural and material face of modern Spain. Liquid Power is a tour de force.
Andrew Ross
Liquid Power is a momentous addition to the annals of hydraulic state-making. Swyngedouw's sparkling analysis of water management and hydro-politics is epic in scope and decisive in detail. I can guarantee readers they won't ever see Spain the same way again.
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