5000 years of History
Author: by Pierre Louis Viollet/ Forrest M. Holly Jr. (Translator)
Year: 2007
Publisher: IAHR
ISBN: 978-90-78046-05-9
Price: €68.00
> PRICE FOR MEMBERS €61.00
Description:
This new book offers an engineer's perspective on the history of water technology and it's impact on the development of civilisation.
A Second Edition and translation into English of the French book “L’Hydraulique dans les Civilisations Anciennes”
Water professionals, engineers, scientists, and students will find this book fascinating and invaluable to their understanding of the fundamental role of water engineering in the development of civilization. The book abounds with descriptions of hydraulic techniques in the civilizations of the classical era and the Middle Ages, including illustrations ands translated descriptions of ancient observers and authors. The work is unique in offering an engineer perspective not only on the history of water technology, but also demonstration of the genesis of ideas and the transmissions of ideas and technology from one age and civilization to the next. The book is specially noteworthy for its efforts to situate hydraulic developments in their historical and intellectual context.
Review:
Book Review by Ray Bert, Civil Engineering, ASCE, Vol. 78, No. 6, June 2008, pg. 73
Table of contents:
Preface by Georges Tate
Introduction
Part I
4,000 years of hydraulic development in the East
From the era of the early cultivators to the conquests of Alexander the Great
Chapter 1. Hydraulics and the birth of civilization
Chapter 2. From Mesopotamia to the Syrian shore: the land of water pioneers
Chapter 3. Ancient Egypt and the Arabia Felix (in modern Yemen), the rhythm of the flood seasons
Chapter 4. The maritime civilizations of the Aegean Sea: urban and agricultural hydraulics
Part II
The Empires of the Builders
Chapter 5. Mathematicians and inventors of Alexandria and the Hellenistic world
Chapter 6. Hydraulics in the Roman Empire: driving force of development and symbol of civilization
Chapter 7. Beyond Bibliographic References Rome, the East and the Arab world
Chapter 8. Rivers, canals, and hydraulic technology in China
Chapter 9. The mills of the Middle Ages
Conclusion
Chronological Table
Units of Measurement
Library Recommendation Form
Bibliographic References
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