Roy, Tirthankar 
ORCID: 0000-0002-4183-2781
(2025)
Water and development: the troubled economic history of the arid tropics.
Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
ISBN 9780197802397
Abstract
From the early twentieth century, a big part of the world—the arid and semi-arid tropics—began extracting, storing, and recycling vast quantities of water to sustain population growth and economic development. The idea was not a new one in this geography. It was an intrinsic part of ancient culture, statecraft, and technology. Most ancient projects, however, were local and small in scale. The capability of water extraction on a scale large enough to transform whole regions and create new cities improved in the early twentieth century, giving rise to a sharp break in the long-term population and economic growth pattern from the mid-twentieth century. Ironically, the geography of the arid tropics made transforming landscapes in this way expensive, damaging for the environment, and disputatious. The book describes this troubled history of economic emergence, building on a definition of tropicality.
| Item Type: | Book |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | © 2025 Oxford University Press |
| Divisions: | Economic History |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions T Technology > TC Hydraulic engineering. Ocean engineering |
| Date Deposited: | 03 Dec 2024 16:36 |
| Last Modified: | 17 Jul 2025 11:21 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/126244 |
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