Building on Water
Subtitle: Venice, Holland And the Construction of the European Landscape in Early Modern Times
Contributors: Jeremy Scott (Translator)
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: April 30, 2006
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 308
ISBN-13: 9781845450656
Subjects: Management of land & natural resources; Social history; c 1600 to c 1700; c 1700 to c 1800; c 1800 to c 1900; Netherlands; History: World; History; Technology & Industrial Arts; Italy; Reclamation of land; Engineering - Hydraulic; Modern - General; Western Europe - General; Europe; Venice Region
First sentence: This book is the fruit of many years of research, with an initial interest in the agriculture and fluvial system of Venice and its mainland Republic gradually expanding into a study of hydrological management in other areas of Italy and Europe (with particular emphasis on France, Holland and Germany).
Description: "A fundamental natural resource, water and its use not only reflect "modes of production" but also that complex interplay between resources and their exploitation (and domination) by various social agents, who in their turn are inevitably influenced by the abundance or rarity of water supplies. Focusing on scientific, social and economic issues from the 16th to the 19th century, the author, one of Italy's leading historians in this field, looks at the innumerable conflicts that arose over water resources and the environmental impact of projects intended to control them.

Venice and Holland are undoubtedly the two most fascinating cases of societies "built on water," with the conquest of vast expanses of marshland - either inland or on the coast (the Dutch polders or the Venetian lagoon) not only stimulating agricultural production, but also nurturing a deeply-felt relationship between the local populations and the element of water itself. The author rounds off his study by looking at the influence the hydraulic technology developed in Holland would have on many European countries (France, England and Germany in particular) and at questions raised by contemporaries about the environmental impact of agricultural progress and its effects upon the social-economic equilibria within the communities concerned."--Jacket.