Precious Commodity
Providing Water for America's Cities
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5705706 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jeffrey C Sanders (0000-0002-8268-5722, Washington State University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 98 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 1222-1223 |
| Publication date | 2012-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jahist/jar621 |
| OpenAlex | W1983282921 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
Reading about the history of water in Martin V. Melosi’s Precious Commodity is a little like moving into a nice turn-of-the-twentieth-century home. On the surface you assume everything is fine and that you already understand the subject. Then you wake up one morning to sewage in the basement and you have to rip out the walls to replace the pipes. Who will pay for this? Will you do it yourself? Who knows a good contractor? The analogy holds true for the entwined history of water and urbanism, the subject of this collection of previously published essays. Melosi forces readers, like the hapless homeowner, to face the complexity and weight of a water history that so many of us take for granted. Yet like the house, most American cities are built atop an antiquated water and sewer system that we have no choice but to deal with. At this book’s core is the argument that context and history matter as we chart a future of difficult choices about who should control water and also how we should choose to use water. Connecting his subject to contemporary concerns for global water equity, environmentalism, and debates about private and public water control, Melosi draws from the deep well of his writings in urban environmental history to remind us that water is not “the next oil” (p. ix). Rather it is a commodity that may be controlled and allocated in different ways at different times
Archaeology · Boom · Commodity · Context (archaeology · Economic history · Economics · Environmental history · Environmentalism · Market economy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Subject (documents · American Environmental and Regional History · Engineering · History · Law
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,4 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2025 (5) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |