The Water Kingdom: A Secret History of China

by Philip Ball

From the Yangtze to the Yellow River, China is traversed by great waterways, which have defined its politics and ways of life for centuries. Water has been so integral to China’s culture, economy, and growth and development that it provides a window on the whole sweep of Chinese history. In The Water Kingdom, renowned writer Philip Ball opens that window to offer an epic and powerful new way of thinking about Chinese civilization.

Water, Ball shows, is a key that unlocks much of Chinese culture. In The Water Kingdom, he takes us on a grand journey through China’s past and present, showing how the complexity and energy of the country and its history repeatedly come back to the challenges, opportunities and inspiration provided by the waterways. Drawing on stories from travelers and explorers, poets and painters, bureaucrats and activists, all of whom have been influenced by an environment shaped and permeated by water, Ball explores how the ubiquitous relationship of the Chinese people to water has made it an enduring metaphor for philosophical thought and artistic expression. From the Han emperors to Mao, the ability to manage the waters ? to provide irrigation and defend against floods ? was a barometer of political legitimacy, often resulting in engineering works on a gigantic scale. It’s a struggle that continues today, as the strain of economic growth on water resources may be the greatest threat to China’s future.

The Water Kingdom offers an unusual and fascinating history, uncovering just how much of China’s art, politics, and outlook have been defined by the links between humanity and nature.
 

Genres: History, China, Nonfiction, Asia, Science, Audiobook, Environment

341 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2017

About the author

Philip Ball (born 1962) is an English science writer. He holds a degree in chemistry from Oxford and a doctorate in physics from Bristol University. He was an editor for the journal Nature for over 10 years. He now writes a regular column in Chemistry World. Ball's most-popular book is the 2004 Critical Mass: How One Things Leads to Another, winner of the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books. It examines a wide range of topics including the business cycle, random walks, phase transitions, bifurcation theory, traffic flow, Zipf's law, Small world phenomenon, catastrophe theory, the Prisoner's dilemma. The overall theme is one of applying modern mathematical models to social and economic phenomena.

Reviews

[Lee · Rating 1 out of 5]

A very shitty book by a science writer who seems to have learned little about China. He essentializes everything related to China.

"...words in Chinese are not just semantic signifiers. They are distillates of Chinese thought, saturated with association and ambiguity, ready to unfold layers of meaning that differ according to context. That is why it is better in any case to call them characters, not words: their form and content are inextricably entwined. The little four-character sayings that Chinese people love to quote to the bafflement even of the forieng student who can decrypt the individual meaning s are a kind of philosophical distillate..." (p. 3).

Complete and utter dogshit. He is treating the Chinese as if they are inscrutable, as if their language is somehow inpenetrable to the outsider. Of course, all languages are saturated with ambiguity that "differ according to context."

The book is non-stop dogshit. He ranges from the Han to the Qing (similar to going from the Roman empire to modern Italy) over a handful of pages, something that, if he were writing about the West, he would be called out for. But, he thinks that because China is somehow magical, he does not have pay attention to the Chinese as historical individuals.

If your toilet has the capacity, this book should be flushed back into the Water Kingdom.

Made it 7% through the book.

[Moved to Library Thing adaorhell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting. Very oriented towards a total beginnger in Asian history, was one of the best airplane books I ever picked up. Using water to frame the Chinese story - (water IS the Chinese story) was a creative way to digest thousands and thousands of years of history. Highly reccomend to the asian beginnger.

[Elentarri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3.5 stars

The Water Kingdom is an overarching, broad overview of the historical Chinese relationship with water, specifically the rivers that flow through China.  This isn't a chronologically linear cultural-political history of China, but rather an examination of how water is entwined in Chinese philosophy, life, politics and culture, in a more-or-less chronological order, but focused more on themes than historical detail.  The book provides illustrations, maps and grey-scale photographs as necessary. 

Philip Ball starts off describing the geography of the region, with a focus on the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, then moves on to the myths and origins of ancient China, including Daoism and Confucianism.  There is also a chapter that explores how water infuses Chinese painting and literature.  The middle sections of the book focus on how China's waterways shaped its political landscape, its maritime adventures, added or hindered military conflicts, and the bureaucracy that developed to control the waters - to minimize the floods, increase irrigation via canals, building dams, and generally turning China's waterways into watery roads for transport of trade goods and people.  I found this middle section dealing with China's dynastic history to be fuzzy in terms of keeping all the dynasties and people separate, but I suspect this is more my issue, than that of the book.  I also wished that the author had discussed the actual hydraulic engineering required in all the water control projects in more details.  The chapter that deals with Mao Zedong and his water projects (including the Three Gorges Dam & the South-North Water Transport Scheme) provides a more indepth discussion of the engineering feats - the problems and disasters encountered, political and bureaucratic interference, funding, labour requirements, the effects of relocating whole towns for dam construction, the measures needed to remove the excessive accumulation of silt, the cultural impact, the end result.  The last chapter deals with China's future in terms of water - the lack of water in certain regions and prolific water pollution.  This chapter examines the current state of water affairs and what needs to be done to improve water quality and access to water.  While there was some mention of the environmental impacts (soil erosion, pollution) of China's long history of water control measures, this aspect was not covered in any particular detail.

Philip Ball sought to show how China's philosophy, history, politics, administration, economics and art are intimately connected to a degree unmatched anywhere else in the world.  In this respect he has succeeded.  I did, however, prefer the chapters where the author spent more time discussing specific water control projects (like the Three Gorges Dam) and their long term effects, than on the generalities.

[Sajith Kumar · Rating 3 out of 5]

China is a huge nation with the geographical features of a continent. It houses the largest homogeneous community of people within its borders, but is also compensated by nature with mighty rivers and abundant natural resources. The country’s social, political, literary, artistic and economic milieus were closely aligned historically with proper management of its rivers and lakes. Water thus quite literally forms a significant undercurrent in every aspect of Chinese life. Negligence or incompetence of water control produced a punishing outcome in the form of floods that breached manmade dykes and dams. In the old times, bungling with water management was a sure recipe for a ruler to lose his kingdom as it was construed by his subjects as an indicator of the loss of heaven’s mandate. As China modernized in the last century, widespread application of scientific techniques has somewhat put the rivers under check. There has been no flooding on the Yellow River since 1949. But the other side of excessive control of hydraulic resources is now becoming painfully apparent. The Three Gorges and other gargantuan projects are wreaking havoc with the ecosystem. Added to this is the issue of pollution caused by lax rules and the state’s thrust to produce more and more whatever be the cost. All major rivers in China are afflicted with the scourge of contamination with industrial waste products. Philip Ball examines water as a major factor that influences Chinese society and culture over the ages. Ball’s obsession with water is amply showcased by his other work ‘H2O – A Biography of Water’, reviewed earlier. The author writes regularly in scientific and popular media and had worked for many years as an editor for physical sciences in the magazine ‘Nature’. This history of China from a watery perspective is a labour of love the author feels for the country, but it is not very obvious how the word ‘Secret’ in the subtitle is relevant.

This book claims to be a grand journey through China past and present and opens a window through which one can begin to grasp the potentially overwhelming complexity and teeming energy of the country and its people (p.5). The worst nightmare for a ruler of China – from the dawn of history to its current administrator in the person of Xi Jinping – is about losing control of the people and a descent into chaos and eventual dissolution. Water was always seen as a potent symbol that demarcates a ruler’s merit. The administrators were greatly helped in this venture by philosophical works which professed a practical concern with the business of daily life and the structure of society. Unlike their Greek counterparts, Chinese philosophers didn’t dwell on abstract metaphysical questions. China has a long history and an equally long list of dynasties which make it troublesome for readers to keep track of which is which. The Qin dynasty, from which the appellation ‘China’ evolved, was surprisingly short-lived, but its first emperor Shi Huangdi is well known to us as the man who built the Great Wall. It is the Han dynasty which followed the Qin that appeals more to Chinese national sentiment, as its society is often called the ‘People of Han’. In all these dynasties such as Song, Tang, Yuan, Ming and Qing, water shaped the political organization of the state. Management of water was also the key to maintaining social order. Large hydraulic engineering projects such as the Grand Canal were conceived and implemented without deference to cost in terms of material and labour. This serves as the backdrop to the origin of the disparaging epithet ‘oriental despotism’. Property rights were secondary to communal interests and a mercantile class was slow to evolve.

Mastery over water was not confined to the control of inland river dykes, but to the vast blue ocean as well. Ball takes great care to describe the series of Chinese naval expeditions in the Ming period under its able admiral Zheng He. Chinese ships dwarfed Vasco da Gama’s vessels which appeared in the Indian Ocean nearly a century later. Some of the larger trading vessels of Chinese merchants weighed 1500 tons against Sao Gabriel’s meager 300 tons! They overstepped the European ships in technique too. Sails of Chinese boats were usually made not of cloth, but of woven bamboo matting. A slew of technological innovations put Chinese navigation in the forefront. Magnetic Compass was invented in China and the Mercator projection for mapmaking was used almost five centuries before it was developed in Europe in 1569. Zheng He made a total of seven voyages starting in 1405 CE. There are claims that he reached the Americas, but a vigorous naval activity up to Africa is historically attested to. These voyages were not interspersed with imperialist overtones, but when the need arose, Zheng He didn’t hesitate to fight. Vira Alakeswara, the ruler of Sri Lanka, refused to pay tribute. The Chinese fleet fought with him in 1405 and the Lankan king was captured and taken to the Ming capital in chains. Isn’t this a prescient pointer to Xi Jinping’s vision of a maritime silk road in the twenty-first century, especially in view of the debt trap in which Sri Lanka finds itself in related to the Chinese development of Hambantota port? Only time can tell. The Ming adventures suddenly ended with the eighth visit in 1434. This created a power vacuum in the Indian Ocean, which was filled by the Portuguese seven decades later. Many reasons are attributed to the sudden demise of maritime ambition, but power struggles and intrigues between the court eunuchs and Confucian officials in the Ming court are the most plausible.

A large portion of the book is dedicated to an analysis of the large-scale hydraulic programs initiated by the Communist regime which took over in 1949. Between 1950 and 1990, about 80,000 dams and reservoirs were built on China’s rivers. The Three Gorges dam is the largest of its kind in the world with a reservoir that is 600 km long which can be seen even from outer space. The electricity generated from the site is enough to cater to 10 per cent of China’s total power demand. Another grandiose scheme of North-South Water Transport that envisages carrying water of the Yangtze to Beijing is on the drawing board. However, environmental concerns don’t bother the Chinese policymakers much. Silting, pollution, damming, overuse, land reclamation and climate change issues go unnoticed. Ball makes it a point to present the problem of polluting factories on riverbanks. Ancient temples in the reservoir of Three Gorges were relocated brick by brick to higher elevations, but this was mostly done with commercial interests in mind in the form of tourist revenue.

China had the good fortune not to fall under the imperial yoke of a foreign power like what happened in India. It had suffered crippling defeat in the Opium Wars against the British, but sovereignty over the territory was not lost. It was only for a brief time that the Japanese could impose their rule on China around World War II. However, barbarian neighbours had overrun China many times in the past. The Yuan dynasty of the Mongol hordes and the Qing dynasty of Manchurians reigned for centuries in the mainland. The Qing Empire, which was the last in the long line of ruling houses and was dislodged only in 1911, was especially humiliating for the people. They insisted that all male citizens adopt the Manchurian shaven head and long pigtail as a sign of allegiance to the Qing state. This was considered unmanly, but refusal to comply carried the death penalty. Seldom do oppressive regimes intervene in personal attire, especially of men. The Taliban’s insistence on men mandatorily growing beards is a case in point.

The book is somewhat difficult to read and the small typeface has not at all helped matters. Readers who are not familiar with Chinese names of persons and places find it difficult to follow the author in the long narrative. A lot of sketches and pictures are included which helps to lessen monotony. Ball is an expert in depicting art and explaining it smoothly. A chapter is reserved for the influence of water on China’s painting style. The author’s predilection to art is understandable as was eminently noticed in his other book titled ‘Bright Earth – Art and the Invention of Colour’, which was also reviewed earlier. So, it is not surprising that he gives a decent summary of Chinese art as well. In the earlier part of the book, Bell quotes other scholars and offers oblique criticism of authors like Jared Diamond and Karl Wittfogel.

The book is highly recommended.

[Alex Sarll]

When most of our rulers are former spads, or at best ex-bankers, it can seem odd how many Chinese leaders began as hydraulic engineers. But China is a country where 'water heroes' rank among the demigods, at least one deified as late as the 19th century. It's also a country where the rivers - especially 'China's Sorrow', the Yellow River - have wreaked devastation on an almost mythic scale, or wandered so much that their outlet now is hundreds of miles from where it used to be, all within recorded history. Ball perhaps understates the degree to which water is also a key metaphor in Western thinking (the spirit moving on the face of the waters gets a passing mention, but not Heraclitus' observation that you can never step in the same river twice), but he certainly makes a compelling case for how central it is in Chinese thought (where, further, there is "little distinction...between metaphysics, systems of governance, and personal morality") and language. Some of this consists in unpicking the structure of the language and its evolution over time; he's intriguing on written Chinese characters in general, but the notion that the one signifying 'irrigation' has also come to mean 'to profit' is particularly evocative. The rivalry between Daoism and Confucianism, too, played out on the nation's waterways - with the latter advocating strict imposition of boundaries while the former advocated something more like going with the flow, a system of management that worked with rather than against the water's natural pathway. Ball is at pains to point out that Confucius, like many other founders of systems for living, said much that his legalistic heirs go directly against. But one nonetheless gets the impression that his sympathies lie much more with the harmonious Daoist approach.

And so, with the parameters laid out, dynasties rise and fall with the waters - though cause and effect are debatable here, for just as devastating floods can suggest the Emperor has lost heaven's mandate, so a ruler on the rocks will be in no position to maintain the necessary dykes and channels. Even allowing for exaggeration in the records, some of the largest naval battles in history took place on China's inland waters, and while the idea that the now-famous eunuch admiral Zheng He discovered America is thoroughly pooh-poohed, recent discoveries confirm that his fleet and his ships were of a truly formidable size. Good emperors seem just as liable as bad to insist on conscript labour in the cause of their hydraulic despotism, and even when the revolutionary Hong turns up for the 19th century Taiping Rebellion, his communitarian ideals soon become more of the same - the firebrand turns absurd tyrant, causing the deaths of tens of millions and surrounding himself with another corrupt inner circle. It barely needs saying that he's not the last like that, and the book's big picture and long view helped confirm for me what I've long suspected; in 500 years time, no non-specialist will even register China's transition to supposed communism as a thing, they'll just list it as another imperial dynasty to follow the Yuan, Ming and Qing. The similarities are far greater than the differences; the emphasis on ideological purity over competence in appointments, with the consequent inevitable impact on results; the risks of bringing the great leader unwelcome news, ditto. In the ludicrous hagiography which grows up around him, the absurd and destructive schemes he proposes and the rush to implement them which undermines even those that might otherwise have achieved something, the outrage when anyone (the laws of nature included) dares gainsay his half-arsed schemes, Mao recalls the worst of his predecessors, and also some kind of monstrous toddler. And always, threading through it, the hecatombs which seem barely to excite comment in Chinese history, and the waters. From the dismally faked pictures of him swimming the Yangtze, to the equivocal benefits of the gargantuan Three Gorges Dam, the waters loomed as large for him as for any dragon-placating (or -slaying) predecessor. Ball is less harsh on Mao than I've been here, though never pusillanimous, and admirably even-handed as regards the Three Gorges, ignoring neither those who suffered in the forced relocation, nor those who benefitted from departing towns beset by "a kind of weariness that tends to prevail in places where opportunities are few, nothing is clean, and there is a sense of decay and decline". Similarly, while the book ends on a grim note, detailing the environmental degradation which industrialisation has wrought on China's water and the feebleness of the efforts to fix that, he is also adamant that there's a seed of hope in the rise of environmental NGOs (for all that's a misnomer in China) and the success of some recent protests against further dubious mega-engineering projects.

As you may have gathered, the centrality and size of the ostensible topic means there's much more stuff which finds a way into Ball's narrative than I've had occasion to mention here, much of it wholly new to me. And from the use of water imagery as an artistic code, to the legacy of north-south racism in a nation which is after all more large, ethnically various and populous than some continents, it's all fascinating. The one thing my review copy was missing, alas, was the images - though from the captions (which I did get) it does seem like in any case they don't include any of pandas relaxing with blocks of ice, which seems an odd omission given that's surely core China/H2O imagery.

[Joshua · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was an enjoyable read. The author has done a great deal of research in the ancient Chinese literature. Anyone who is at least casually interested in art, literature, philosophy and politics in Chinese history will find the book informative. In some places, the rather subtle translations were off (e.g., "all rivers weir" for the Dujiangyan hydraulic system, or "Dream Pool Sketches" for the title of Shen Kuo's book Mengxi Bitan), but they didn't hinder the reading and messages weren't lost in translation.

Navigating China's long and complex past to come back with a modern perspective is not an easy task. "Water Kingdom" brings water management in historic and modern China as the nexus to understand the Chinese approach to the nature, humanity, and the world. It's intuitive and reasonable. As a sedentism civilization, Chinese were historically obligated to manage waterways for irrigation, flood control and long distance transportation. However, there was little comparative analysis in the book that demonstrated other regions and cultures approach water differently, in philosophy, social organization, or art and literature. It's hard to conceive that any other civilization could have treated resources as vital as water with any less attention. The Yellow River and the Yangtze to the Chinese are as much as the Ganges to the Indians, the Nile to the Egyptians, and the Mississippi and the Colorado Rivers to the Americans.

The Chinese often says: "History is a mirror," indicating the tendency to consult the past in order to understand the current events. But history has been unfolded as one single series of more or less haphazard episodes, which limits the rigor of generalization and prediction. More seriously, history was often inaccurately recorded, and even systematically deleted or fabricated by scholars who either served for the pleasure of rulers or were indulged in their own narratives. It is a peril of over-interpreting the ancient history that itself is data of sparsity and questionable quality.

For science-oriented readers, the book's analysis was casual. The writing tended to meander while the author was trying to make sense as much information as what the research came across and struggling to feed the narrative with uncorrelated sub-themes and sometimes unsubstantial materials. The presentation mingled facts, myths, and anecdotes, which obscured the boundary between serious and leisure reading. Many stories---each one may have a multitude of renditions in Chinese literature---can be better read elsewhere. The author extensively cited Chinese poetry that reflected on waters, from the mystic Qu Yuan to the unrestrained Li Bai. Mixing art and literature with science and politics can provide an interesting reading and can also be easily misleading. The author argued that the ancient Chinese art and poetry depicted the nature with a focus on self-reflections and therefore failed to appreciate the nature of its own right. This anthropocentric view implies the historic and cultural underpinning of the ongoing environmental damages. The reasoning is a bit stretched. The author nevertheless cited the textbook excerpt from Laozi's Dao De Jing: "Humanity follows the Earth, the Earth follows the Heaven, the Heaven follows the Dao, and the Dao follows the Nature", as an evidence that Chinese philosophy did respect the environment after all. But the meaning of "the Nature" is ambiguous, as in many ancient Chinese writings that valued compact premises and bypassed elaborations. It could mean the natural environment or the laws of nature. In the latter case, understanding the laws of nature doesn't have to lead to environmental conservation as we have witnessed that scientific knowledge had unleashed devastating forces (from gunpowder to nuclear warheads to mass production and consumption). Again, overreaching to the ancient literature is interesting but not necessarily insightful. Massive human-inflicted damage to the environment is largely a post-industrial revolution phenomenon, which are now accelerated by the economy model that encourages per capita growth and trusts market forces. Multinationals globalize labor markets and transcontinental trades at an unprecedented scale, stressing the ecosystem to its limit. Neither industrialization nor market economy originated from Chinese philosophy or was implicated in the ancient Chinese art and literature. In China, serious environment degradation started in 1950s when Mao wanted to industrialize the country overnight, aggravated after Deng started the economic reform in 80s, and went haywire when China became the world's factory.

Most man-made environmental disasters have been caused by poor policies due to ignorance in science. To identify a sensible human-nature relationship, a fundamental question might be what is required to develop a science-driven civilization. In hindsight, the well-known "Needham question" effectively asked what had been missing for China in the recent history to develop modern science. One Chinese saying has it: "Another emperor, another group of sycophants". Often times in dynastic transitions, scholars collectively suffered as they were more inclined to criticize the new regime and its policies. Records and documents were lost in bulk or intentionally destroyed during the process (as in Qin Shihuang's "burning of books and burying of scholars", and in Mao's "Destroy the Four Olds"). This resetting of intellectual progress is effectively an authoritarian proofreading mechanism that only allows scholarly works to be preserved and inherited as long as they serve the ruler. Some science sifted through and survived the censorship in the forms of sporadic ideas and documents and didn't become a continuously accumulative process. During the Northern Song Dynasty, Bi Sheng (AD 990-1051), a commoner, pioneered the movable type printing using porcelain. As described by a single paragraph in the chapter of "Crafts" in Sheng Kuo's Mengxi Bitan, "Characters carved on gluey clay, ..., and then burnt to toughen". It would take another five centuries for the method to evolve from using clay to wood then to bronze, not for the lack of ingenuity but by self-inflicted restrictions in printing. Science and engineering were also looked down upon as mere utilitarian crafts that didn't match up with the "true" intellects in art, literature and philosophy.

Besides, ancient emperors and modern leaders, especially the confident and charismatic ones, were more than often deluded by their own competence. As Einstein said: "The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while." This would apply to Mao. He experienced tough intra-party struggles, fought hard and competently in wars, and not only survived but achieved the indisputable status that couldn't be challenged. He emerged from struggles and believed in the value of constant struggles, which greatly affected his perception of both human-nature and human-human relationships. Mao was a self-regarded poet who loved to project the grandiose of the nature onto the powerful of man. But governance is not exactly a quixotic art, and being poetic doesn't always go hand-in-hand with solid science and careful engineering. Poeticizing policy making was proven constantly disastrous and eventually tragic in Mao's era. Li Bai could certainly get away with his freestyling and extreme exaggeration while downing a few drinks since he didn't have to manage a whole country. Mao's arrogance boiled over to unfamiliar areas such as science and economy. That precipitated the grand-scale economic and social "struggles": the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. When you were entitled to manpower and resources on a whim, you may feel compelled to dissipate them.

The story of Yu Gong (literally, the foolish old man) was an interesting cite in the book, but was misinterpreted. The story is one of many fables from the mythology collection in Liezi Tangwen. As a transition between Laozi and Zhuangzi, Liezi (450-375 BC) had a major influence in the Taoism. Yu Gong, a rather ordinary story, became well-known because Mao Zedong singled it out in a party speech in 1945. Mao used the two mountains, Taixing (today's Taihang in Shanxi Province) and Wangwu (now in Henan Province), as metaphors to imperialism and feudalism, two enemies that had to be defeated no matter how overwhelming they were. Since then the fictitious old man has been serving as a propaganda tool to teach people to work hard for the "greater good" of the state. However, this was one of Mao's many misunderstandings or intentional twists of Chinese ancient philosophy. Studied more closely, the original fable might be read quite differently. At any time, with a few offsprings, the 90 years old Yu Gong didn't have much manpower in his plan and wasn't bothered by it, and he never thought about expanding his efforts by recruiting his fellow villagers either. A project of a grand scale also wasn't his mission. To the opposite, Mao was impatient and preferred a "shock-and-awe" kind of approach, as in his "Great Leap Forward" movement that collectively mobilized the whole country (so-called the human-ocean tactic) out of a fanatic wish of overnight miracle. Not as Ball suggested, Liezi didn't philosophize that man can change the nature to suit his own need or must "conquer the nature". It was Mao who advertised that. The often-ignored finishing touch of the Liezi's fable extended its moral, by which the mountains were preserved after all. The mountain god was distressed that Yu Gong's family might in the end remove the two peaks. He then pleaded to the God of the Heaven, who was impressed by the old man's determination and ordered the two sons of Kua E Shi (a herculean god) to move the two mountains away, Taihang to the east and Wangwu to the south. Mao, in his speech, replaced the mythological God of Heaven with "the people".

The story made an insightful observation: Despite the intuitive insignificance, small efforts accumulated in a long haul can produce remarkable outcome. And a bigger change takes a longer time without immediate or near-future gratification. Such a naturalistic principle could be found repeatedly in the Chinese literature. The Confucianism scholar Xunzi (313-238 BC) wrote: "One cannot travel a thousand miles without accumulating minuscule steps; Rivers and oceans cannot form without absorbing small tributaries." Luo Dajing (AD 1196-1252) of Song Dynasty wrote in his novel: “Sawing rope cuts wood, dripping water penetrates stone”. Many natural processes are also unnoticeable but lasting. It took the collision of India subcontinent and Asia Continent 80 million years to raise the Himalayas. Six million years for the Colorado River to carve out the Grand Canyon. Geological transformations undoubtedly challenge human perception of time, but failure to recognize long-term cause and effect has modern-day repercussions. Many are still incapable of making sense of slow (but not so slow) threats that evolves at a time scale of decades, such as the climate change due to industrial activities. The foolish old man might not be as idiotic.

[Augusto Bernardi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really interesting and unique and I did learn a lot. I was at first a bit confused with the premise. The relationship between China and water? I'm still unsure and if that's the case, I don't particularly think that China has a special relationship with water that any other culture wouldn't have too. Especially one from a country with rivers. How can you possibly undervalue the importance of water in any culture, civilization or country?

True enough, water systems in China have been really important throughout their extremely long history. On the Yellow River in the north and the Yangtze to the south. I really liked the point he made about the two rivers being historically the axis of the country itself instead of north, south, east and west. You can already tell the extreme care and appreciation of Philip for Chinese culture as he points out the mispronunciations in Pin Yin and also how the Yangtze river is not called that by the Chinese themselves but just as the Long river.

The chapters in the book about politics, philosophy and art were waaaay to far fetched for me and I didn't enjoy them as much, which is unusual for me as I'm fascinated by those subjects. Maybe it was only because I thought it was a stretch to associate them with this unique idea of the relationship of China and water.

I was fascinated though with the chapter on China and the ocean with their attempts to sail the seas. Their success is debatable but definitely not to the level of the Europeans, but their potential is definitely impressive. It mentioned the attempts to conquer the neighboring countries over the seas during the Yuan dynasty but the more impressive and ruthless rule was that of the Ming immediately after the Yuan. It was apparently the red turban rebellion in the late 1300s that lead to the downfall of the Mongolian leaders of China. The hongwu emperor, one of the more important ones of all Chinese history is the first of the Ming dynasty and one of many reforms, including many draconian ones to smash any potential rebellions or corruption with a newly created secret police(particularly against powerful lords and eunuchs). He also established the capital of China in Nanjing. Later, the third emperor, and son of Hongwu, the Yongle emperor had an equally strict regime but in the opposite direction and reestablished bringing as the capital. He also reopened the Grand canal and ordered the construction of the forbidden City. he established the largest Chinese fleet of all times. In the world actually. Some of the ships, like the Ming treasure ships, were the largest wooden ships ever. Most of these great expeditions were lead by the eunuch


The next chapter was mainly about the attempts to control the mighty river with river dredging and embankments with the adult itself, during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Although fairly elaborate systems were developed, they seemed to be a losing battle. There were some important examples of the yellow River overflowing in Kaifeng region. These examples over the centuries and the daily of the water control officials were a reflection on the decline of the Qing dynasty but not necessarily an example of cause and effect. It was certainly a huge drain on the royal coffers which inevitably weakened the dynasty and made them vulnerable for other threats. The opium war was just a detail in the large picture. The taiping rebellion was far more momentous than anything else bring one of the bloodiest battles ever with possibly 20 to 30 million casualties over the 14 years. The taiping rebels (taiping heavenly kingdom) were lead by a ethnically Haka man that claimed to be the brother of Jesus Christ. Despite being laughably unlikely, it was really popular at the time with the religious remains and distancing themselves from the Manchu rule. The taipingv rebels were known for their semi Christian philosophy, long hair and colorful clothing. Their leader was no less ruthless than any other major leader in Chinese history. Mentioned interesting details of his obsession with being constantly fanned and poetry read to him. After conquering Nanjing and then later losing and ultimately losing the war, the taiping irreversibly weakened the Qing. Their leader, Hong Xiuquan died of disease probably from malnutrition. China was up for grabs for foreigners and attempts to fight them back lead to a strong of further deterioration of the Qing and it put an end to the Chinese empire for good.

The best example of using water in war is not with the use of a navy but in the short lived Shun dynasty, after the Ming. The leader Li Zicheng or the Yongchang emperor, a peasant leader that ruled for a year, orchestrated a man-made flood in Kaifeng( one of the biggest cities in the world at the time) that killed between 200 and 300 thousand people as it flooded the city. It's easier to destroy than to rule. Kaifeng was abandoned for decades and never got it's former glory even after reconstruction from the Qing. The legendary and influential Sun Tzu mainly mentions water in metaphorical terms. It's debated whether Sun Tzu even existed but even his realism in his advice is debatable as he says to stay away from rivers. The opposite of what Chinese warfare revolved around. Many dynasties aren't just extinguished through rebellions or warfare but also through mismanagement, disorganization and a watering down of power. To control China, one had to control it's rivers, strategically. Only until the railroads in the 20th century, was this not the case. The greatest example of this is perhaps the most famous of all Chinese battles and legends, the battle of the Red Cliff from the romance of the three kingdoms. It's particularly difficult to distinguish what is fact it fiction but the events are agreed to have happened in the early 200ad, around the end of the Han dynasty. The chapter outlines briefly the enormous naval battle the forces of Sun Quan and Liu Bei vs the powerful Cao cao. The former two were heavily outnumbered but the crafty naval tactics allowed them to keep a chunk of the Yangtze and survive another day. A obviously moment in the conflict that has transcended into Chinese pop culture.
China became an impressive admirable naval power centuries later in the Sui dynasty with their immense Sui dynasty war ships which had multiple stories and all sorts of weapons. China has a history of great ingenuity with naval technology and weapons ranging from armored paddle boats, smoke bombs to detaching firework ship parts. The combat became increasingly less and less hand to hand. The Mongols were well known For their adaptability and ingenuity in warfare too and that can be seen with the Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty in 1268 by Kublai Khan on city of Xiangyang. A pivotal gateway to the capital of the Song, Hangzhou. The Mongols used defected jin soldiers (Han Chinese) and Koreans in the battle on land and sea, armed with European trebuchets to smash the walls of the city. The battle took six long years but ultimately was the turning point for the end of the song and the start of the Yuan. Foreign powers and influences never really left after the Yuan. Ad Chinese exports traveled across the silk road, mostly only silver would come back which made a big problem of trade. The one import the Chinese market desperately wanted but the empire didn't, was opium by the English. The English East Indian trading company had a monopoly over opium and made insane profits from the Chinese. Tensions between the two nations increased as the illegal sale of the drug pressed for further loosening of the trade laws. The first opium war that was forced onto the Chinese was actually an example of a series of cultural misunderstandings between the vastly foreign nations and political customs. An open war would never be possible for the British but the Chinese ships were no match for the iron clad nemesis. It all ended with the rather unfair Nanjing treaty. The English got the barren island of Hong Kong and was able to trade in five ports including Shanghai. The second opium war followed soon after over equally as pathetic reasons and further concessions were made.
Back to the subject of water in warfare, it isn't unique to use it as a weapon itself like the earlier example. Flooding the event can drown them, destroy their fortifications and also force them into desperate living conditions. It was even banned as warfare in history. Gaining the high ground served also to even poison the water supply to armies.

The chapter about dams referred to the early communist era during the mao administration. In such chaotic times, its pretty obvious there are going to be multiple stories of epic mistakes. One of the many mistakes were the officials in charge of dams overriding "conservative" engineers advice to not overfill dams to meet energy quotas. You risk being at the mercy of potential or unlikely storms big enough to cause disaster. Well typhoon Nina did exactly that and the Bangqiao dam collapsed in a catastrophic disaster killing tens of thousands of people(estimates range from 20 to 80 thousand). Then it mentioned another large dam, the Sanmenxia Dam that was another one of the poorly planned decisions in the mao era and it caused apparently a ton of relocation and silt problems near and around the yellow River. The rest of the chapter was dedicated towards the collosal three gorges dam, on the Yangtze River, that took decades to plan and financially build with the financial and technological backing of many countries. The dam has an important symbolic quality for harnessing the power of the Yangtze (like mao originally envisioned, a demonstration of the potential of socialism/communism and also is sheer size being something too big for any person. It's above us. A fair bit of the chapter was actually about the critics and critiques of the dam. Mainly by foreigners of course, despite the victims being Chinese. It's definitely not that simple to navigate through the critiques from a moral or logical or economic perspective. The dam is far too big and obviously very costly. But not harnessing the natural energy, that also is fairly clean, would be a giant mistake itself, especially for a country like China with such an enormous carbon footprint through it's use of coal and steel production. Once it was completed in 2003, it


The last chapter is about the future of water in China. Fitting. It deals with the lack of it in regions where it is needed and the poor quality of it because of pollution. Modern day phenomenons. The author says that treating the people poorly goes hand in hand with water poorly, and vice versa. Are the solutions replacing grey solutions with green solutions for the environment? This complete disregard or attack of the environment is particularly evident in the mao era. The great leap forward, as it implies in the name also had the haste to meet quotas. Mao sort of used the environment as an enemy itself or a symbol of dominating foreign enemies. The massive expansion of China production has also lead to the demand of water increasing too, of course, to the point where dams and wells are drying up the landscape and literally creating desserts. More scary in my opinion is the sinking of whole cities and the constant unpredictable danger of sinkholes. The other huge problem is dirty, polluted it contaminated waters that do get to people. There were a ton of v examples of lakes, rivers and whole villages having to be evacuated because some accident or some very intentional factory spilled some chemical into the waters. The safest example to me was the very likely extinction of the river dolphin, Baiji, as mating grounds were cut off by dams, waters darkened by silt and a lifting on a van to hunt them during the Mao era. But it isn't just mystical wildlife that are paying the price of this. People are by poisonings or even increased cancer rates or the decrease of drinkable or even usable v water drastically impacts agriculture. There are green solutions and increasing the cost of water can somewhat decrease the demand and put a bigger focus on the care for water with fines for polluting it. But these solutions aren't certainly enough and not enough to stop factories or other polluters to keep doing it as the doesn't give them incentive enough to change. The government system itself in China is not built to listen to these problems and then change them. At least not quickly it quick enough. And that's being generous. And if all the examples of the past, outlined in this book aren't a good example of why that's important, then the future of China, and the future is their independence is a good example.

[Smitchy]

China is a mystery to many westerners. A superpower and tech giant seeped in an ancient culture and many traditions. Philip Ball was once a westerner struggling to understand the thoughts and culture of his adopted country when a colleague pointed out the role water plays in myths, legends, history and politics.

This book is more in depth than the casual traveller to China would probably be interested in, but is a fascinating read for anyone who wants to dive into the mindset of Chinese people.

Ball goes into the treatment of water in myths and history. The conjunction between legend and fact is often rather blurred as various emperors wrote themselves into myths as heroes and their enemies became villains. Untangling myth from reality is sometimes impossible. An effort further complicated by the fact rulers often had three or more names (one they were born with; one adopted upon becoming ruler; and a 'common' name) and frequently these names are similar to gods or other great rulers.

Like political leaders today, these ancient emperors knew the value of positive publicity and frequently started projects to control and prevent flooding along the various major rivers. Often the flooding events were attributed to various gods and demons and by controlling the floods governors raised themselves almost to the level of deities.

Since the control of water played such a part in history even now China's ruling communist party recognises and acts on the deep-seated expectations of the public when it comes to water - its traditions and in it's public works.
If you want to understand China and its' people first you need to understand water.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

The importance of water, control and militarisation there-off in Chinese history adds a new perspective to its foreign and trade policy.

The control of water and the unique challenges in China with rivers that run hugely variable courses lead to a need for, or an acceptance of, large scale mobilisations of its populace across decades.

One can only wonder whether the roots of today's 5 year plans go back a bit further than the Communist revolution...

[Andrew Canfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Water Kingdom: A Secret History of China provides an interesting take on the Middle Kingdom's development. Philip Ball is more of a science writer/journalist than historian, and this allows him to tackle the history of China via a different angle than the typical nonfiction author would take.

Ball starts out with the hypothesis that water has defined Chinese culture more than most outsiders realize. From early developments along the Yellow and then Yangtze River basins to constant battles with flooding and, when it is in short supply, droughts, water has done so much to steer the Middle Kingdom's lengthy societal evolution.

There is discussion of Confucianism and Daoism's developments and the concept of Chinese dynasties-oftentimes authoritarian and frequently within a fractured landscape of governance-leaning on the concept of water to encapsulate their philosophies. Just as water defines the parameters in which everything inside of it operates, so must even authoritarian Chinese leaders remain mindful that doing too many things outside the confines of the nature of public opinion can have disastrous consequences.

The adaptability of water itself to whatever vessel or crevice it happens to be in was held up as a reason why so many Chinese philosophers, governmental officials, and even writers have been drawn to it as a stand-in for broader cohesive social functioning.

The Daoist take toward water engineering and flood control (to work with the natural flow of water itself and provide it outlets which are more in line with nature in order to control its worst effects) versus a more Confucian approach (to assert human dominance over water itself and engage in everything from large-scale damming and hydraulic projects to ensure this) came in for examination from Ball.

Contained within the book are some quick discussions of dynasties like the Han, Song, Ming, and Qing. Each of these analyses comes back in one form or another to the author's quixotic fixation on water.

Poets like Li Bai and Qu Yuan were drawn into the storyline to drive home the centrality of water to Chinese appreciation of nature and broader harmony within society. That China had beaten many Western countries to ocean exploration by over a century thanks to the exploits of men like Zheng He was noted, as was the empire's ultimate abandonment of the seas in favor of a more inward, domestic focus (see the Great Wall).

The Hongwu Emperor and his son Yongle (late fourteenth and early fifteenth century China), leaders of the Ming Dynasty who had emphasized treasure ships and explorations into the outlying seas, eventually had their policies reversed when this external-focused shift left ocean exploration open to the likes of the Spanish, Dutch, British, and Portuguese in the coming centuries.

Even Ying Zheng's Qin Dynasty, which lasted for only a decade and a half, was looked at in terms of the hydraulic advancements that took place during its truncated time span.

The Maoist era, with its focus on massive projects undertaken to bend nature to the Communist Party's will, takes up a disproportionate amount of the book.

During this period, projects like the Three Gorges Dam the South-North Water System seemed to fall in line more with the Confucianist, human dominance-asserting side of this domain.

Do a lot of the assertions in the Water Kingdom seem like a stretch and appear undertaken to fit a lot of the author's musings within his original hypothesis?

Yes.

But, despite this, the book still ends up enjoyable and informative. Readers who are in the early stages of learning about the Middle Kingdom's history will take away quite a bit from the offbeat manner in which Ball chooses to present it.

By placing water and the ways its unpredictability and adaptability have shaped China at the center of the story instead of wars, politics, or emperors, it provides a different lens through which to view developments.

The Water Kingdom: A Secret History of China is deserving of four stars and deserves credit for its unique way of approaching a topic which sprawls across centuries and millennia.

-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado

[Dave Appleby · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a history of China seen through the lens of water management. China is a vast land area with a relatively small coast which is irrigated principally by two huge rivers that flow west to east: the Yellow river, so called because of the vast amounts of silt it carries downstream, and the Yangtze. Both of these rivers periodically flood and the floods can devastate whole regions, killings millions of people: "Life on the Yellow river floodplain was not so much precarious as predictably disastrous" (Ch 1). They have therefore been subject to water management schemes since the earliest dynasties. When you add in the importance of water for irrigation and for transport, it becomes easy to see why the empires in China rose and fell as a result of the ability of the imperial administration to control the water.

My biggest problem with this book is that the size of the subject, Chinese history over the past 3000 or more years, is vast. This, added to my utter ignorance of China, meant that a lot of what was being said went straight over my head. Ball tries to provide a soft introduction but this sometimes only served to make things more difficult. For example, he explains how to pronounce Chinese words under the pinyin system ... but q is pronounced like ch and x like sch and z like dds and c like ts ....so that I ended up thoroughly confused and resentful that the words weren't being written so that I could pronounce the,. Why not write Qin as Chin if that is how it is pronounced? When you add this first difficulty with that of understanding how the writing works, remembering the multiple dynasties, some of which had multiple emperors, and understanding where the states and provinces are, it is a testament to the skill of this writer that I understood as much as I did. If one thing was made very clear to me it was that my ignorance of such a vast and important culture is inexcusable.

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Whereas the Greek and Norse gods enchant and amuse us with their very humanity -- with their characterful exploits, rages, jealousies and caprices -- the Chinese deities are often remote administrators who impose order by superhuman feats of endurance and will. What these emperor-gods must defeat is in the end no different to what the Communist Party of China still fears today: a descent into chaos and dissolution. In Chinese myth that destructive force often took the very tangible form of water." (46)

"Chinese philosophy, while at times highly intangible, abstruse and mystical, was never isolated from daily life. One is not surprised to find the influence of Western schemes of thought such as Aristotelianism or Christianity in, say, ethics, art and social relations, but it is rare for those to manifest themselves in the more practical aspects of the quotidian: the Bible doesn't tell you how to build a bridge. The ideas of Confucianism and Daoism, in contrast, were manifested in many diverse fields of human activity in China." (80)

"The ploy of dyke-breaching to flood the enemy was so common, and so destructive, that as early as 651 BC some states signed (to little apparent effect) a treaty banning the breaching of Yellow River levees for warfare." (210)

"Go ad ask the Yangtze, which of these sooner ends: / Its waters flowing east or the love of parting friends." (257)

"It's no coincidence that water is the primary medium of the Chinese artist, in contrast to the egg tempera and oils of the West. This is more than just saying that a watery wash is good for representing water itself -- to the Chinese artist, the medium was the message, since only with so fluid a substance could one capture the vitality, the qi, of what was being depicted." (267)

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just when you think there couldn't possibly be a new take on China's history, a book like this one appears. Very clever. Wish I had read it before visiting Dujiangyan two years ago but better late than never. And it certainly puts all those little bits you knew about water in China into a cohesive whole--in this regard, it's a very satisfying and interesting read for those familiar with China's story and geography.

That doesn't mean nothing is new; quite the contrary. I learned (p. 29) that "The great sandbar in the mouth of the Yangtze was dredged in 1905 by the European colonialists who prevailed over the fatally weakened Qing empire, literally opening the way for Shanghai to become the playground of Western merchants...." I had wondered how Shanghai could have been a useable port for deep-water ships given thousands of years of silt accumulation, but had never seen the fact that the Europeans had it dredged. Eight pages later you learn that soy sauce was invented to "eke out [the] costly commodity of salt for China's peasants." But more interestingly, that "Throughout the Shang, Zhou and Warring States periods, the Chinese people thought of themselves as the Xia people" (p, 63). It's so obvious yet something one doesn't come upon intuitively (well, at least I didn't, but what else would pre-Han Dynasty people have referred to themselves as?).

I love books like this -- stories with themes or plots where you're familiar with the parts but where they have been put together in new ways and dotted with fun 'factoids'. Recommended to anyone with a real interest in Chinese history. I'm going to urge it on my non-fiction history book group.

[Tony Tony Chopper · Rating 2 out of 5]

This books covers a vast array of information, from the earliest histories of China up to modern day (2016). The first half of this book was very intriguing with all of the information Ball puts forth in his arguments and recounts of history.

This is, however, interrupted around chapter 7 when Ball decides to place blame on the Daoguang Emperor for the start of the First Opium War. The reason provided being cultural misunderstanding. It seems rather strange that the Emperor, wanting nothing to do with opium after seeing its effects on the populous, be blamed for British retaliation. Before this, he mentions Britain being angry that China wanted none of their goods in trade other than their silver currency.

Further, in later chapters, he takes the time to be extremely critical to the CCP. Such egregious bias prevalent on these pages that he makes it a positive when the Nationalists under Sun Yat-Sen, (later Chiang Kai-shek), propose the construction of dams. Yet vilified the Revolutionaries under Mao for the same proposed plans. The bias is blantant. The attempt at the 'both sides are bad' argument is laughable when he devotes so much time bashing the CCP as compared to the Nationalists or the British in earlier chapters. (He admits their faults and hand in the Opium Wars, but places almost equal blame on the Chinese.)

This book is best in its earlier chapters, focusing much on ancient history. Though he still attempts some revisionism then, just not as radical or prevalent in the narrative, it's added as more of an after thought.

It is insightful and has some interesting ideas, but approach it cautiously as the bias is strong in later chapters.

[Vincent Fong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommended this introduction to Chinese culture and history!
Thought it at first to be a book on environmental management only, ofc that's a major part esp in the 2nd half; But Ball surprised me by linking obscure facts even to the Chinese to organize his view on the Middle Kingdom (One thing to note: Much in the middle section it's quite "water-related")

Interesting touches:
1. In "Finding the Way", Ball used the ancient character of water (水) to show that water in ancient China is confined, thus not indicating oceans.
2. In "Rise and Fall of the Hydraulic State", Ball mentioned the bandits / gangs related to canals building and maintanence
3. In "War on the Wters", Ball extended the flooding warfare of Jin's 智伯 in the Spring-Autumn era to “Ranked Biographies of Assassins” in "Records of the Grand Historian" (刺客列傳，史記)
4. In "Mao's Dams", Ball described the controversies of the San-Xia Dam construction in much detail, including the aftermath of the relocated villagers with their homeland submerged.
5. "Fluid Art of Expression", Ball mentioned 張彥遠's 歷代名畫記 to be the reference of the 2standard of shanshui art.

Ball didn't rely on reading much ancient texts, that might reduce the credibility of this work as an historical study. However, considering his being the editor of "Nature", his ability to extract from various 2nd-hand resources surprised me, his societal / ideological / philosophical vision put classic art / texts in a coherent and comprehensive dialogue with each other. Hope to see more books like this!

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

The basic premise behind this book is that China is and always has been hugely influenced by its rivers, especially its two great ones: the Yellow River and the Yangtse. Without a good understanding of how these rivers, which have flooded easily and devastatingly, behave, a non-Chinese person cannot really fully comprehend the overriding influence on China's history they have had. Taming the rivers through dykes and re-routings was so important in the past that rulers would often be toppled if their efforts, through their hydraulic engineers, failed to prevent floods. Equally, grandiose schemes could lead to some areas suffering drought as irrigation schemes were deprived of the water they had been bult to divert into the fields. Emperors would have been seen to have lost 'the mandate of heaven' if a catastrophe associated with flooding or indeed a river drying up occured, and they would then often lose power and be replaced. Moving to more modern times, Ball concentrates on the hydroelectric schemes which have sprouted all over China and wonders if they have been built with much forethought to the wider consequences; indeed, he claims many have been sub-standard in construction with the dangers that that brings with it. All in all this was a fascinating read, the sort of aspect of history that barely occurs in western cultures. None our rivers in Europe is of the scale which made them so important in determining the course (pun not intended!) of our histories.

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

In The Water Kingdom, Ball considers the tumultuous nature of China's history and thus chooses to focus on a constant - water. He does this across a very wide time period, looking at art and literature, agriculture, battles, legends, dynasties and more to show just how all-encompassing it can be, perhaps with an intent to show that the influence of water is not restrained to the agricultural, but extends even to the political.

While I had little regard for just how specific the The Water Kingdom was in its mentions of wars, specific names and places, (reading out of interest rather than an essay) I can still acknowledge how valuable of a book this is; I have no doubt that should I come to study this, or know of someone studying it, I will not hesitate to recommend it. It contains many valuable insights into China, using water as the lens to do so, but also gives a new perspective as to the future both of China and of Water itself. I found the latter chapters of the book particularly interesting on the last 50 or so years of China, and will read more on this topic when I find the time.

Thus, while not entirely engrossed in the book as I have been with other non-fiction works, I cannot help but acknowledge the masterful writing of Phillip Ball. He has created a vivid picture of a rather niche topic, which I am sure will be relevant for years to come.

[Zhi Yan Jin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The rarely-found foreigner-written book on China, from as philosophical and metaphysical and simultaneously practical and project-wise angle of water, itself an inviting door into Chinese culture and history. Philip Ball has a startlingly deep understanding of Chinese history and classics, as well as the rare ability to read, understand and pick out intricacies of the Chinese language that are often missed out, by Western writers, and even Chinese writers with English as a second language. As a result of all these attributes, he has written the best book on China I've read in a long while. I recommend this to anyone wishing to learn about: water as a philosophical and and artistic and political muse and means of expression, mega-engineering projects in China and internationally, the influence of water as an element and as a commodity in past and present times, and what water may herald for the rule of the Communist Party in the time to come. Gems on every page.

[Thequaminator · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting premise; semi-interesting book.
Reminded me of the book Magdalena, which told about Columbia's geography, history, and people from its major river.
It was very interesting to spend time learning about China's two major rivers (Yellow & Yangtze) and how their west-east flow, siltation, major floods, canals, warfare, and changes in course have greatly affected every Chinese kingdom.
Chapter 5 is about the interesting and generally unknown the large ships and long journeys with which the Chinese explored the world in the 1400's.
The 8th and 10th chapters, primarily about current era dams and environmental concerns were the most the most interesting to me.
I only skimmed chapter 9, primarily about art.
As others have commented the non-chronological order was hard to follow.
Also, for me personally knowing very little about China, all of the names, states, and eras sound the same.

[Helen Ni · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of the book sounds promising but the execution is lacking. After 10 chapters, the author has still only scratched the surface of his so called secret history of China. There is a fair amount of information about China. It is told from an interesting angle, water. But overall, it offers no insight or deeper understanding. For instance, how is the water perceived differently in China than in Europe ("The Influence of Sea Power upon History")? Whatever challenges Chinese face with their rivers, many other countries face the same problems as well. How was Chinese handling them differently? I feel the author is going in right direction, but didn't go very far in trying to answer these questions.

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

'The fact that water ressources and management in China are becoming a bellwether of political sentiment is precisely what the history of water in China should lead us to expect. The ancient, shared roots of both water philosophy and water management in China mean that it is an issue on which the country's leaders ignore the wishes of the people at their peril'. (p. 314)

This conclusion is elegantly, insightfully and an original way superbly well supported by the author in this intriguing book, that provides a new (crucial) pivot for the daunting challenge of interpreting Chinese history and culture in a digestible way. Greatly recommended.

[Bill Leach · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author tells a story of China centered on the importance of water to the Chinese and their culture. From the role of water in Chinese myth and legend to the influence of water in shaping the political landscape, the author moves to the expansion of Chinese seafaring in the Ming dynasty where the voyages of Zheng He are most notable. Additional sections on water management, wars and conflicts on the waters, damming of the rivers for technological advancement (a large initiative of Mao), and the influence of water on Chinese poetry and painting, lead to thoughts on the influence of water on China's future.

[Ravi Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting way to approach the history of a vast and complex nation. Arguably no single history of China could ever be complete given how long the Chinese civilization has been around. However this is an intriguing and enjoyable way of sampling part of it. Water seemingly has been central to shaping Chinese history and philosophy. It has been instrumental in the rise and fall of kingdoms and is relevant even today. And not just internally for China but also its relationship with the neighbors. Many rivers in China flow into India, Myanmar etc which are already developing into potential issues. An easy, informative read.

[Truls Ljungström · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ett försök att skapa en psykologisk profil på den fastlandskinesiska maktkulturen genom att studera dess reaktioner på det flodsystem som dominerar dess hjärtland. Arbetsmetoden är närmast etnografisk - man tar stöd i allt från beskrivningar av skifttecken till historia till lyrik. Det går förvånansvärt bra, och begripliggör en del annars märkliga vanor. Boken är inte en historieöversikt: den är för grund och för hoppig för det, men däremot är det en utmärkt bok för någon som läst en aning kinesisk historia och som har utvecklat lite dynastiaversion efter en outgrundlig lista med kejsare vars namn slutar på -di. Boken konkretiserar det som brukar beskrivas med begreppet dynastiskts program och förklarar varför furstar som Wang Mang (som med europeiska mått mätt skulle ha setts som framgångsrika) förkastats i den kinesiska populärhistorien. Resultatet är att en västerlänning som jag tycker mig ha fått lite bättre förståelse vilket gör mig nöjd.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's simply unfathomable to me that a general-interest science writer would embark on such a sprawling topic as the history of China, and I could imagine an expert might dismiss it out of hand as being a work of pure hubris. However, outsiders sometimes uncover insights that insiders overlook, and I wondered what those might be. Ball points out that Chinese language, poetry, philosophy, and culture is infused with direct and indirect references to water. He makes the case that China's rivers and their recurrent flooding have had such a pronounced and ongoing influence in human affairs that one must take water into account for a robust understanding of Chinese governance and social organization throughout its long history.

Given how critical water is to the existence of life, it's probably true everywhere to some degree, but China's landscape, in particular, sounds like it has been at the mercy of water cycle in critical ways. I can't assess whether Ball get's his history right, but it's important to recognize that when we are telling human histories, humans aren't the only agents dictating the narrative.

[Jason Oliver · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Water Kingdom is an overview history of China with emphasis on the role water has in China's philosophy, language, art, economy, and survival.

I enjoyed the later part of the book, closer to present day as I had a bit better point of reference since I know very little about Chinese history. I enjoyed learning all the history, but I sometimes felt lost due to my own ignorance. My favorite part was learning about the large rivers in China, specifically the Yellow River and the importance and power of water.

This book is very dry. I'm not sure I would recommend this book, but it was interesting.

[Liza May · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've just begun the ninth chapter - water in Chinese art and literature. So interesting!

I love this book - what a great way to tell the story of Chinese history, Chinese thought, philosophy, attitude and perspective, culture, politics, early technical and scientific superiority.

China truly is the Water Kingdom and this is laid out beautifully, thoughtfully, respectfully, thoroughly, clearly, and with plenty of color, drama, and humanity to make it mesmerizing.

Great writer - I'm glad to have discovered him. Great book.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted an overview of Chinese history, I also like geography, so this book seemed like a good place to start. Ball narates nearly 3000 years within the context of it's East flowing rivery systems, mainly the Yangtze and Yellow river networks. The importance of these flows to kingdoms, food production and transportation are well told, and these weave into the nature of Chinese myth and culture, making what might be just a dry relating of facts much more interesting and enjoyable to read. Yes, a good starting point.

[Eddie Choo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterful overview of China as a hydraulic kingdom

Wittfogel suggested that China was an example of a hydraulic kingdom - where the management of water, the construction of irrigation and canals meant that despotism arose easily. Philip Ball shows how this concept might apply to China, seeing how the management of water was a matter of political survival and legitimacy. The management of water is a understated reality of China and deserves to be explored further.

[Raymond Goss · Rating 4 out of 5]

I look at China from the perspective of how water provides, takes away, is leveraged, is abused and contaminated. The book is a fascinating read and brings in everything from Poetry to the world travels of the Ming. I would have given it 5 stars if it had been organized chronologically a little better.