What a splendid idea: to write a history of China through its relationship with water. Far-fetched you might think: not in the least, as you will find immediately you start to read this fascinating book ... You will never think of China in quite the same way again.

In his excellent, smartly written new book, British science writer Philip Ball identifies water as "one of the most constant, significant and illuminating themes" in China's history and culture.

Extraordinary.

Ball’s journey along the history, politics and culture of China’s waterways encompasses many heroes of Chinese hydrology, men who grappled with elemental forces and imperial censure and sometimes came out on top.

The Water Kingdom presents us with an epic portrait of China’s water management history and its deep interlacing with culture currents. It’s essential reading for any serious understanding of the dynamic relations between humans and nature, not only in China, but in the world at large.

His book, a rewarding read, is at its most fascinating when describing how in China the laws of nature seems to have embedded in them a moral precept… Mr Ball puts water back beautifully at the heart of China’s story.

Strikingly original

[A] lucid and impressive book… [A] thoughtful study.

The Water Kingdom traverses fascinating, endlessly fertile territory... There is a great deal in [the book] to inspire.

[A] fascinating book.

This book is fascinating and took me on a journey into a world I previously knew very little about. Take the time to immerse yourself and you will find this a rewarding read.

The language of water has been spoken in China since the earliest times. This remarkable book explains why, and is one of the very few that will be respected both in the West and in China.

[It offers] a unique window through which we can begin to grasp the overwhelming complexity and teeming energy of the country and its people.

An accessible history.

Essential reading.

Ball offers a compelling and evocative insight into a history still little understood in the West.

Ball’s ingenious idea is to narrate the story of China from the point of view of water… showing how profoundly the country is at the mercy of its great rivers.

Intriguing

Ball takes us on a fascinating and dizzying tour through Chinese myth and history.

a fascinating biography

Hemming tells a story of great interest, bringing to light the exploits of an eccentric and magnetic personality, a man able to keep his professional and private lives rigorously separate and who fully justifies his posthumous reputation

Hemming gives an engrossing account of the remarkable life of a great eccentric

Lauren Elkin is one of our most valuable critical thinkers – the Susan Sontag of her generation

The acclaimed historian of Russia sweeps the brittle high society of pre-Revolutionary St Petersburg, the terror-chilled jails of Stalin's purges and the secrets of 1990s Moscow archives into a tragic panorama.'

A seamlessly written and moving portrait of the soviet Union in miniature from the Revolution to the age of Yeltsin.

What is striking is how he has thrown himself heart and soul into the romance and emotion of his drama. The novel throbs with sex, maternal feeling, revolutionary fervour and terror ... Terrific stuff