November 2023…

*Elixir: A History of Water and Humankind, Brian Fagan. Reading with CJS.

Comment after finishing seven chapters:
There is interesting material here, and I am happy to be reading it. However, the writing is not grea: it is difficult to follow if you are really trying to get a deep sense of what is going on.

The same date is sometimes referred to as 4,000 BCE, 6,000 years ago, or a millennia after another event. I can do the math, but pausing to do so drops me out of the flow of the text.
The maps helpfully included in the chapters lack many of the places referred to in the text: Where are the Taurus mountains? Are they the same as the mountains near Cudi Dag (not shown on the map either). Clearly, neither writer nor editors ever tried referring to the associated map…
Places are also referred to with different names: The Lands of Enlil; Southern Mesopotamia; the lands to the south of modern-day Bagdad; the Fertile Crescent refer, I think, to the same area. But it is difficult to be sure.
Often it is unclear what the relationship between sequential examples are — are they supposed to reinforce one another, or complement one another, or are they being presented for some other reason? Sign-posting would be really helpful.

Preface

The three themes of this book are (1) gravity and its fundamental impact on the flow of water; (2) the relationship between ritual and water management; and (3) sustainability. One point the book will take up is the way in which the invention of the mechanical pump transformed the mining and movement of water.

The book takes an anthropological perspective, closely examining the relationships between water technologies and human usage and management practices, and looking at the role rituals play. It looks at both historical examples — even reaching into the deep past where the primary source of information is archeological work — and present day examples. And of course the book addresses the ongoing crisis in water sourcing and distribution, and the question of sustainability.

November-December 2023

Entry 12 in the Essays Project with CT; and this is the sixth book we’ve read by Oliver Sacks. Here we take up the neurological case account essays for which he is best known, after reading his two autobiographies, and other writings ranging from general essays to an account of his travels in Oaxaca. This book, published in 2010, explores cases in which people have lost visual abilities that we all take for granted – not so much blindness (although maybe there will be some essays on that), but rather the consequences of some of the many ways in which the complex and intertwined elements of the visual processing system may be disrupted.

Month: November 2023

EP#12: The Mind’s Eye, Oliver Sacks