About the Course
Facts and information about water and the story of changing human relationships with water over the past 10,000 years.
Water. It caresses and comforts us, provides sustenance and refreshment, is something that humanity has cherished since the beginning of history, and means something different to everyone else. Yet the historical facts and information about water remains little known. Water tells the story of changing human relationships with water over the past 10,000 years and tries to answer some basic questions:
- How have human attitudes to water changed since people first began to manage their water supplies?
- What major events in the past have defined our present relationship to water, not as something revered, but treated as an anonymous commodity?
- Why are we now facing a global water crisis and what are prospects for the future?
This is the story of gravity and human ingenuity, of irrigation and aqueducts, of humble farming villages, ancient cities, and the rise and fall of civilizations. The course draws on archaeology and hydrology, on anthropology and ancient oral traditions, on classical literature and Islamic agriculture-on a broad array of scientific inquiries in many languages and in all parts of the world.
Course Content
6 lectures( video and text format ) across five sections
- The Elixir of Life
- The irrigators – Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt
- Reservoirs, Rice, and Rivers – Asia
- The Water Maestros – Greece, Rome, Islam, and the Inca
- The Industrial Revolution and Beyond
Course Benefit
A brand new perspective on water and quality interactions with a community of 4900+ course takers learning together.