{"product_id":"liquid-power-contested-hydro-modernities-in-twentieth-century-spain-9780262548960","title":"Liquid Power: Contested Hydro-Modernities in Twentieth-Century Spain","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn examination of the central role of water politics and engineering in Spain's modernization, illustrating water's part in forging, maintaining, and transforming social power.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn this book, Erik Swyngedouw explores how water becomes part of the tumultuous processes of modernization and development. Using the experience of Spain as a lens to view the interplay of modernity and environmental transformation, Swyngedouw shows that every political project is also an environmental project. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn 1898, Spain lost its last overseas colony, triggering a period of post-imperialist turmoil still referred to as \u003ci\u003eEl Disastre\u003c\/i\u003e. Turning inward, the nation embarked on \"regeneration\" and modernization. Water played a central role in this; during a turbulent period from the twentieth century into the twenty-first--through the Franco years and into the new era of liberal democracy--Spain's waterscapes were completely transformed, with large-scale projects that ranged from dam construction to irrigation to desalinization. Swyngedouw describes the contested political-ecological process that marked this transformation, showing that the Spain's diverse and contested paths to modernization were predicated on particular trajectories of environmental transformation. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAfter laying out his theoretical perspectives, Swyngedouw analyzes three periods of Spain's political-ecological modernization: the aspirations and stalled modernization of the early twentieth century; the accelerated efforts under the authoritarian Franco regime--which included six hundred dams, expanded hydroelectricity, and massive irrigation; and the changing hydro-social landscape under social democracy. Offering an innovative perspective on the relationship of nature and society, \u003ci\u003eLiquid Power \u003c\/i\u003eilluminates the political nature of nature.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eErik Swyngedouw is Professor of Geography at the University of Manchester. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eSocial Power and the Urbanization of Water: Flows of Power\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50399043420434,"sku":"9780262548960","price":43.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_4959aefb-1f53-4376-b293-671c34f2c86c.jpg?v=1729087386","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/liquid-power-contested-hydro-modernities-in-twentieth-century-spain-9780262548960","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}