Thirst: A Short History of Drinking Water

TL;DR — A Duke law professor’s history of how societies have decided who owns drinking water and who pays for it.

Duke Law School Legal Studies Research Paper No. 92, December 2005.

Salzman traces drinking water from Roman aqueducts through medieval well rights to bottled water, and the through-line is a legal one: every society has had to decide whether water is a commons, a public utility or a commodity, and each answer produces a different set of winners.

A short, readable history with a live policy argument underneath it.

Where this came from

• Brendan Sheehan’s public are.na channel

34 pages. A copy is archived locally against link rot; the header links the original source.