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Title: Heart of Dryness
Subtitle: How the Last Bushmen Can Help Us Endure the Coming Age of Permanent Drought
Author: James G. Workman
Narrator: Anthony Gettig
Format: Unabridged
Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
Language: English
Release date: 03-22-13
Publisher: Audible Studios for Bloomsbury
Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 4 votes
Genres: Science & Technology, Environment
Publisher's Summary:
"We don't govern water. Water governs us," writes James Workman. In Heart of Dryness, he chronicles the memorable, cautionary tale of the famed Bushmen of the Kalahari - remnants of one of the world's most successful civilizations, today at the exact epicenter of Africa's drought - and their remarkable, widely publicized battle over water with the government of Botswana, to explore the larger story of what many feel is becoming the primary resource battleground of the 21st century: water.
The Bushmen's story may well prefigure our own. Even the most upbeat optimists concede the U.S. now faces an unprecedented water crisis. Large dams on the Colorado River, which serve 30 million in 7 states, will be dry in 13 years. Southeast drought cut Tennessee Valley Authority hydropower in half, exposed Lake Okeechobee's floor, dried $787 million of Georgia's crops, and left Atlanta with 60 days of water. Cities east and west are drying up. As reservoirs and aquifers fail, officials ration water, neighbors snitch on one another, corporations move in, and states fight states to control shared rivers. Each year, inadequate water kills more humans than AIDS, malaria, and all wars combined. Global leaders pray for rain. Bushmen tap more pragmatic solutions. James Workman illuminates the present and coming tensions we will all face over water and shows how, from the remoteness of the Kalahari, a primitive (by our standards) people is showing the world a viable path through the encroaching desert of the coming Dry Age.
Members Reviews:
Excellent glimpse into the life of the bushmen of the Kalahari. Worth reading. Food for thought.
This is a good book, worth reading if you have any interest in Africa, anthropology, or the "bushmen" (a.k.a. San).
What I found interesting about this book is different from what everyone else thinks this book is about. The Amazon blurb, and every review posted here so far, will tell you that this book is about how the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert in Botswana have learned to cope with extreme water shortage, and what we need to learn from them to cope with the upcoming global water shortage that will be caused by overpopulation and climate change. While this is indeed a theme of the book, it is not what I found to be the most interesting part.
The Bushmen of the Kalahari are one of the few remaining examples on the planet of people living a pre-civilized (i.e. hunter-gatherer) way of life. Sleeping under the stars, living in the desert, owning only what they can carry with them, and obtaining their food and water by hunting and gathering. For millions of years, that was how all humans lived. Then this thing called "civilization" came along about 6000 years ago. Civilization basically took over the planet, not because everyone suddenly realized "hey this is better, let's adopt it", but instead because (for reasons brilliantly explained by Jared Diamond in "Guns, Germs, and Steel"), every time civilization came into contact with pre-civilized people, civilization won.
