The River Nile in the Age of the British Political Ecology and the Quest for Economic Power

About this book

The Nile today plays a crucial role in the economics, politics and cultural life of ten countries and their more than 300 million inhabitants. No other international river basin has a longer, more complex and eventful history than the Nile. In telling the detailed story of the hydropolitics of the Nile valley in a period during which the conceptualization, use and planning of the waters were revolutionized, and many of the most famous politicians of the 20th century – Churchill, Mussolini, Eisenhower, Eden, Nasser and Haile Selassie – played active parts in the Nile game, The River Nile in the Age of the British should stand as a case study of a much more general and acute question: the political ecology of trans-national river basins.

Contents

Introduction: The River Nile and the Politics of Water

Part 1: A River Conquered
1. River Imperialism
2. A British Nile
3. The Nile as Stick and Carrot
4. Nile Diplomacy, Bog Barons and War

Part 3: Collapse of a River Empire
5. The Nile and Imperial Collapse
6. Nasser's Aswan High Dam - Hydropolitics as World History
7. A Last Roar - Turning the Nile Against Nasser

Part 4: The Legacy
Epilogue: The British Nile Legacy and the Pedagogy of the Atlas

Notes on the Text
Bibliography
Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

Professor Terje Tvedt is Research Director in the Faculty of Social Science, University of Bergen and a Panel Member of UNESCO's World Water Assessment Programme.