The Star Tribune reviews Karen Piper's 'The Price of Thirst'

Steve Weinberg from The Star Tribune reviews 'The Price of Thirst' by Karen Piper

The Price of Thirst by Karen PiperA publisher located in the Land of 10,000 Lakes might seem like an unlikely promoter of a book about a mostly unacknowledged world water crisis. Furthermore, the publisher is a university press, not generally associated with aggressive investigative reporting. And another surprise — the investigative reporter is not primarily a journalist, but rather an English professor whose academic specialty is postcolonial studies.

For decades, I have been thinking that the next civil war in the United States would be triggered not by human, racially based slavery but rather by battles over water use — for drinking, for farming, for recreation. Author Karen Piper, a University of Missouri professor, has revised my thinking. It turns out the war I project might transcend the United States, spilling over into other nations on other continents.

 

Continue reading the review here.

Published in: The Star Tribune
By: Steve Weinberg