The Water Kingdom

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 is 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.

Elementals: Water, Earth, Fire and Air are only the beginning. Elementals support everything from Darkness to Time, secretly maintaining the processes of nature. Only now the Elementals are nearly extinct. Two years ago, the Air House released a plague that killed ninety percent of them. With their society in chaos and so many of their kind dead, they can't find their Phase-Matches; the other halves of themselves. Without Matches they can't have any more children and, without the Elementals, the world will end. Again.Ty: Ty, Queen of the Water House is having a bad couple of years. Her lunatic ex-Match keeps trying to kidnap her, most of the Elementals still blame her for the Fall, she has crippling panic attacks, and she's being forced to attend group counseling in the human realm. When Gion, of the Air House shows up and demands sanctuary in the Water Kingdom, Ty doesn't know what to think. Gion makes her nervous. He's too cold, too powerful, and too intense. His only hobbies seem to be scowling and killing people. Except, when Ty looks into his eyes, she feels a... connection.Gion: The most feared assassin in the Elemental realm, Gion, of the Air House has spent his entire life being ostracized and feared. There's a price on his head, everyone in the universe hates him, and he's been exiled from his homeland. Gion's tired and all he wants is Ty. For eleven years, he's secretly been in love with the Water Queen and he's done with hiding his feelings. His goal now is to somehow make a place for himself in the exasperatingly pastel Water Palace and to claim Ty for himself. Unfortunately, there are a few problems with his plan including the fact that Ty is terrified of him, the eccentric Water Phases keep trying to make him watch reality shows, and there are still many, many people who want Ty and Gion dead.Book three of The Elemental Phases.

Oil and water, and the science and technology used to harness them, have long been at the heart of political authority in Saudi Arabia. Oil’s abundance, and the fantastic wealth it generated, has been a keystone in the political primacy of the kingdom’s ruling family. The other bedrock element was water, whose importance was measured by its dearth. Over much of the twentieth century, it was through efforts to control and manage oil and water that the modern state of Saudi Arabia emerged. The central government’s power over water, space, and people expanded steadily over time, enabled by increasing oil revenues. The operations of the Arabian American Oil Company proved critical to expansion and to achieving power over the environment. Political authority in Saudi Arabia took shape through global networks of oil, science, and expertise. And, where oil and water were central to the forging of Saudi authoritarianism, they were also instrumental in shaping politics on the ground. Nowhere was the impact more profound than in the oil-rich Eastern Province, where the politics of oil and water led to a yearning for national belonging and to calls for revolution. Saudi Arabia is traditionally viewed through the lenses of Islam, tribe, and the economics of oil. Desert Kingdom now provides an alternative history of environmental power and the making of the modern Saudi state. It demonstrates how vital the exploitation of nature and the roles of science and global experts were to the consolidation of political authority in the desert.

A Kingdom of Water is a study of how the United Houma Nation in Louisiana successfully navigated a changing series of political and social landscapes under French, Spanish, British, and American imperial control between 1699 and 2005. After 1699 the Houma assimilated the French into their preexisting social and economic networks and played a vital role in the early history of Louisiana. After 1763 and Gallic retreat, both the British and Spanish laid claim to tribal homelands, and the Houma cleverly played one empire against the other. In the early 1700s the Houma began a series of adaptive relocations, and just before the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 the nation began their last migration, a journey down Bayou Lafourche. In the early 1800s, as settlers pushed the nation farther down bayous and into the marshes of southeastern Louisiana, the Houma quickly adapted to their new physical environment. After the Civil War and consequent restructuring of class systems, the Houma found themselves caught in a three-tiered system of segregation. Realizing that education was one way to retain lands constantly under assault from trappers and oil companies, the Houma began their first attempt to integrate Terrebonne Parish schools in the early twentieth century, though their situation was not resolved until five decades later. In the early twenty-first century, the tribe is still fighting for federal recognition.

In The Water Kingdom popular science writer Philip Ball navigates the turbulent and often confusing currents of Chinese history and culture by tracing peoples’ relationships with water, from pre-historical founding myths to today. Water has been an enduring metaphor for philosophical thought and artistic expression in China, and from the Han emperors to Mao, the ability to manage water became a barometer of political legitimacy. Attempts at controlling China’s vast waterways has involved engineering works on a scale unmatched the world over - for better or worse. Yet the strain that economic growth is putting on the country’s water resources today may be the greatest threat to China’s future. In characteristic style, Ball delivers an original portrait and as yet unseen cultural history of a country that becomes easier to understand when water is brought to the table.

When the Sudanese civil war reaches his village in 1985, 11-year-old Salva becomes separated from his family and must walk with other Dinka tribe members through southern Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya in search of safe haven. Based on the life of Salva Dut, who, after emigrating to America in 1996, began a project to dig water wells in Sudan. By a Newbery Medal-winning author.

After writing a dense theological book on the supernatural worldview of the Bible called, The Rush and the Rest, and a shorter version for the average reader called, Fantasy IRL, Bradley retells his studies once again—this time through allegorical fantasy. Follow Brennan and Kahli as they find their lives flipped upside down by a miracle man named, Sarx, who is on a mission to install a kingdom on the earth that will overthrow the great dragon that plagues it. As their story unfolds, you just might find yourself seeing the gospel story in a whole new light.