We all know what water is, and we often take it for granted. Because it seems so natural, we seldom question how we see water. But the spectre of a worldwide water crisis suggests that there might be something fundamentally wrong with the way we think about water.

Jamie Linton dives into the history of the modern concept of water, that water can be stripped of its wider environmental, social, and cultural contexts and reduced to a scientific abstraction – to mere H₂0. This abstraction has given modern society licence to dam, divert, and manipulate water with impunity, giving rise to a growing suite of problems. Linton argues that part of the solution to the water crisis involves deliberately reinvesting water with social content.

Jamie Linton is an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Geography at Queen’s University and a fellow at the Queen’s Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy.

Jamie Linton's profile page

The publication of Jamie Linton’s superb monograph, What is Water?, provides an opportunity to consider the development of relational and dialectical thought within geography and especially how this has developed around the subject of water.

The Geographical Journal

Linton presents the issues in impressive breadth and depth, and tells a compelling story. Recommended.

I.D. Sasowsky, University of Akron

Jamie Linton’s excellent analysis fills a gap in the understanding of our conceptions of water. His critiques of the water crisis and the new paradigm of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) are simply brilliant and long overdue. The book is easy to read for an audience new to the literature on water from a social science perspective.

Social & Cultural Geography

Linton’s message needs to be taken seriously by anyone for whom water is something more than so many molecules of H₂O … it is a message that should be incorporated into both introductory and advanced courses in a number of disciplines dealing not only with water but with all natural resources.

Critical Policy Studies, Vol. 4, No. 4