In the original dust jacket. Black cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

• We provide an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available

Note: This book carries a £5.00 discount to those that subscribe to the F.B.A. mailing list.

This study of the social and cultural “conquest” of water in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries describes and analyzes the ways in which water was gradually turned into a manageable resource and employed for the purposes of hygiene and for a variety of other uses in everyday social life. Goubert traces the conquest of water back to the development of a body of scientific and technical knowledge about water and to the implementation of this knowledge in a range of practical policies. The aim of these policies was to raise the health standards of the population, an objective which was pursued through education, through medicine and through the media. The practical conquest of water has, in turn, placed water at the centre of modern civilization and transformed our actions, attitudes and customs. The abundant supply of clean, pure water has transformed our very notions of cleanliness, hygiene, household management and the practical ecology of living in modern society.

It is a typically French idea that the relation between society and one element of its evolution – in this case water – provides the clue to understanding the whole of social progress. This is the ideal time for the British to read a book which places water at the centre of things and Gaubert’s theory is, on the surface, intriguing, given the current revolution overtaking our own water industry. Maybe the author can teach us something about the possible effects of privatization on the relationship between what we are and what we drink.