Rivers of Power
How a Natural Force Raised Kingdoms, Destroyed Civilizations, and Shapes Our World
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Rivers of Power
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Narrated by:
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Victor Bevine
About this listen
Rivers, more than any road, technology, or political leader, have shaped the course of human civilization. They have opened frontiers, founded cities, settled borders, and fed billions. They promote life, forge peace, grant power, and can capriciously destroy everything in their path. Even today, rivers remain a powerful global force - one that is more critical than ever to our future.
In Rivers of Power, geographer Laurence C. Smith explores the timeless yet underappreciated relationship between rivers and civilization as we know it. Rivers are of course important in many practical ways (water supply, transportation, sanitation, etc). But the full breadth of their influence on the way we live is less obvious. Rivers define and transcend international borders, forcing cooperation between nations. Huge volumes of river water are used to produce energy, raw commodities, and food. Wars, politics, and demography are transformed by their devastating floods. The territorial claims of nations, their cultural and economic ties to each other, and the migrations and histories of their peoples trace back to rivers, river valleys, and the topographic divides they carve upon the world. And as climate change, technology, and cities transform our relationship with nature, new opportunities are arising to protect the waters that sustain us.
Beautifully told and expansive in scope, Rivers of Power reveals how and why rivers have so profoundly influenced our civilization and examines the importance this vast, arterial power holds for the future of humanity.
©2020 Laurence C. Smith (P)2020 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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-
Eye opener of how the seas impact today
- By Thomas VandeVanter on 03-11-23
By: Bruce Jones
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Collapse
- How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
- By: Jared Diamond
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 27 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,703
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,470
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,462
In Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion, and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization. Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Jared Diamond Downs You in Explanation
- By Rob on 07-20-18
By: Jared Diamond
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The Great Warming
- Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations
- By: Brian Fagan
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 103
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 73
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 74
The history of the Great Warming of a half millennium ago suggests that we may yet be underestimating the power of climate change to disrupt our lives todayand our vulnerability to drought, writes Fagan, is the silent elephant in the room.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Good book but unpracticed, disjointed narration.
- By Paul on 09-12-10
By: Brian Fagan
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Don't Know Much About Geography: Revised and Updated Edition
- Everything You Need to Know About the World But Never Learned, Revised and Updated
- By: Kenneth C. Davis
- Narrated by: Kenneth C. Davis, Joe Ochman, Mark Bramhall, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 83
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 70
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Story4 out of 5 stars 67
Kenneth C. Davis, author of Don't Know Much About® History, Don't Know Much About the Civil War and Don't Know Much About the Bible, turns his inimitable wit and wide-ranging knowledge to the subject of geography, and proves once and for all that there is a lot more to it than labeling countries on a map. From often amusing perceptions people have had through the ages about the world and the universe to the changing map of today, Davis shows how geography is really a great crossroad of many fields: biology, meteorology, astronomy, history, economics, and even politics.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Errors
- By The Product Owner on 08-29-15
By: Kenneth C. Davis
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Origins
- How Earth's History Shaped Human History
- By: Lewis Dartnell
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 604
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 534
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 530
When we talk about human history, we often focus on great leaders, population forces, and decisive wars. But how has the earth itself determined our destiny? Our planet wobbles, driving changes in climate that forced the transition from nomadism to farming. Mountainous terrain led to the development of democracy in Greece. Atmospheric circulation patterns later on shaped the progression of global exploration, colonization, and trade. Even today, voting behavior in the southeast United States ultimately follows the underlying pattern of 75 million-year-old sediments from an ancient sea.
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5 out of 5 stars
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GREAT Book with a Narrator Who's Falling Asleep
- By aaron on 08-02-20
By: Lewis Dartnell
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Coal
- A Human History
- By: Barbara Freese
- Narrated by: Shelly Frasier
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 378
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 185
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Story4 out of 5 stars 191
The fascinating, often surprising story of how a simple black rock altered the course of history. Yet the mundane mineral that built our global economy, and even today powers our electrical plants, has also caused death, disease, and environmental destruction. In this remarkable book, Barbara Freese takes us on a rich historical journey that begins three hundred million years ago and spans the globe.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Uses Coal to push her Political Agenda
- By Kismet on 08-22-06
By: Barbara Freese
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Artificial Intelligence
- Modern Magic or Dangerous Future?
- By: Yorick Wilks
- Narrated by: Hannibal Hills
- Length: 5 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 5
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 4
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Story4 out of 5 stars 4
AI expert Yorick Wilks takes a journey through the history of artificial intelligence up to the present day, examining its origins, controversies, and achievements, as well as looking into just how it works. He also considers the future, assessing whether these technologies could menace our way of life and how we are all likely to benefit from AI applications in the years to come.
By: Yorick Wilks
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Why Geography Matters
- More Than Ever
- By: Harm de Blij
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 120
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 101
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Story4 out of 5 stars 99
In recent years our world has seen transformations of all kinds: intense climate change accompanied by significant weather extremes; deadly tsunamis caused by submarine earthquakes; unprecedented terrorist attacks; costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; a terrible and overlooked conflict in Equatorial Africa costing millions of lives; an economic crisis threatening the stability of the international system.
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1 out of 5 stars
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A book that needs more than just narration
- By Organic Design on 06-10-15
By: Harm de Blij
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Tropic of Chaos
- Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence
- By: Christian Parenti
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 54
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
From Africa to Asia and Latin America, the era of climate wars has begun. Extreme weather is breeding banditry, humanitarian crisis, and state failure. In Tropic of Chaos, investigative journalist Christian Parenti travels along the front lines of this gathering catastrophe - the belt of economically and politically battered postcolonial nations and war zones girding the planet's mid-latitudes. Here he finds failed states amid climatic disasters.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Absolute must-read topic!
- By Kevin on 07-07-14
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The Ages of Globalization
- Geography, Technology, and Institutions
- By: Jeffrey D. Sachs
- Narrated by: Steve Menasche
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
Today's most urgent problems are fundamentally global. They require nothing less than concerted, planetwide action if we are to secure a long-term future. But humanity's story has always been on a global scale. Sachs takes listeners through a series of seven distinct waves of technological and institutional change, starting with the original settling of the planet by early modern humans through long-distance migration and ending with reflections on today's globalization.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Narrator.
- By ROGER QUESADA on 08-03-20
By: Jeffrey D. Sachs
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Connectography
- Mapping the Future of Global Civilization
- By: Parag Khanna
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 168
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 139
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Story4 out of 5 stars 141
In Connectography, visionary strategist Parag Khanna travels from Ukraine to Iran, Mongolia to North Korea, Pakistan to Nigeria, and across the Arctic Circle to explain the unprecedented changes affecting every part of the planet. He shows how militaries are deployed to protect supply chains as much as borders, and how nations are less at war over territory than engaged in tugs-of-war over pipelines, railways, shipping lanes, and Internet cables. The new arms race is to connect to the most markets.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Fluffy and Pretentious
- By Kurt Emery Matson on 12-01-16
By: Parag Khanna
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Let There Be Water
- Israel's Solution for a Water-Starved World
- By: Seth M. Siegel
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 171
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 154
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 153
Let There Be Water illustrates how Israel can serve as a model for the United States and countries everywhere by showing how to blunt the worst of the coming water calamities. Even with 60 percent of its country made of desert, Israel has not only solved its water problem; it also has an abundance of water. Israel even supplies water to its neighbors - the Palestinians and the Kingdom of Jordan - every day.
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3 out of 5 stars
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More water politics story than water technology
- By normal person on 04-12-21
By: Seth M. Siegel
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Beyond the Known
- How Exploration Created the Modern World and Will Take Us to the Stars
- By: Andrew Rader
- Narrated by: Andrew Rader
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story5 out of 5 stars 38
For the first time in history, the human species has the technology to destroy itself. But having developed that power, humans are also able to leave Earth and voyage into the vastness of space. After millions of years of evolution, we’ve arrived at the point where we can settle other worlds and begin the process of becoming multi-planetary. How did we get here? What does the future hold for us?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved it!
- By Ann Wellington on 11-14-19
By: Andrew Rader
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The Future of Geography
- How the Competition in Space Will Change Our World (Politics of Place)
- By: Tim Marshall
- Narrated by: Tim Marshall
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
Humans are venturing up and out, and we’re taking our competitive spirit with us. Soon, what happens in space will shape human history as much the mountains, rivers, and seas have impacted civilizations around the world. It’s no coincidence that Russia, China, and the USA are leading the way. The next fifty years will change the face of global politics and the world order as we know it. In this must-listen work, bestselling author Tim Marshall navigates the new astropolitical reality to show how we got here and where we’re heading.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good Overview of Astro Politics
- By Gary on 04-18-24
By: Tim Marshall
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The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Revised and Updated
- The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late
- By: Thom Hartmann, Neale Donald Walsch - associate editor
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 93
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 79
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 80
While everything appears to be collapsing around us - ecodamage, genetic engineering, virulent diseases, water shortages, global famine, wars - we can still do something about it and create a world that will work for us and for our children's children. The inspiration for Leonardo DiCaprio's feature documentary movie The 11th Hour, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight details what is happening to our planet, the reasons for our culture's blind behavior, and how we can fix the problem.
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5 out of 5 stars
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One of the Most Important Books of our Time
- By Jana on 04-24-20
By: Thom Hartmann, and others
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Disunited Nations
- The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World
- By: Peter Zeihan
- Narrated by: Peter Zeihan, Roy Worley
- Length: 16 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 1,958
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,644
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Story5 out of 5 stars 1,631
In Disunited Nations, geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan presents a series of counterintuitive arguments about the future of a world where trade agreements are coming apart and international institutions are losing their power. Germany will decline as the most powerful country in Europe, with France taking its place. Every country should prepare for the collapse of China, not North Korea. We are already seeing, as Zeihan predicts, a shift in outlook on the Middle East: it is no longer Iran that is the region’s most dangerous threat, but Saudi Arabia.
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5 out of 5 stars
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brilliant geopolitical primer re the future
- By Howard on 04-11-20
By: Peter Zeihan
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The Well-Tempered City
- What Modern Science, Ancient Civilizations, and Human Nature Teach Us About the Future of Urban Life
- By: Jonathan F. P. Rose
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 72
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 62
Cities are birthplaces of civilization; centers of culture, trade, and progress; cauldrons of opportunity - and the home of 80 percent of the world's population by 2050. As the 21st century progresses, metropolitan areas will bear the brunt of global megatrends such as climate change, natural resource depletion, population growth, income inequality, mass migrations, and education and health disparities, among many others.
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3 out of 5 stars
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The best way to save the future is to look at the past
- By Kate on 10-01-22
What listeners say about Rivers of Power
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Katherine
- 05-23-20
Great book about a topic rarely written about
The book does an amazing job of explaining rivers: the science behind their behavior; interesting histories of some of the major rivers of the world; humankind's interaction with them. I read this book because my husband is a fluvial geomorphologist and up until now, there is not a book that I know of that explains rivers to the layperson. The writing is excellent. There are memorable stories about The Nile, dam removal, dam building, hydropower, Steelhead trout. and more!
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