Running Out?

This book has won the Western Australia Premier Book Award in the Western Australia History category in Oct. 2016. For nearly 200 years, the visions and aspirations of the people of Australia's west have been characterized by an 'unquenchable thirst.' This book uncovers a fear that has long gripped the region's inhabitants and loomed large on the state's political agenda: the fear of running out of water. This fear has shaped how urban and rural Western Australians learned to live with the effects of a variable climate on their water supply, lifestyle, and livelihood. This is a story of hardship and persistence; of inclusion, exclusion, and defiant profligacy in the face of growing scarcity, through a period of great development and social change. It is an engrossing environmental history that offers a new understanding of the past. Running Out?: Water in Western Australia questions this way of life, as Western Australians approach an uncertain future in a drying climate. Connecting the local to the global, the book provides a deep, historical nuanced discussion on the country's water resources and usage. ***** "Running Out? Water in Western Australia" is the winner of the WA Premier's Book Award for Western Australia History, October 2016. *** Ruth Morgan has written a book that wears its scholarship easily and tells its story briskly with grace and skill...an analysis that has relevance well beyond Australia. -- Richard White, Stanford U. *** Lucid and engaging, this book tells a compelling story with vital implications for the nation's future...This is environmental history at its best. -- Grace Karskens, U. of New South Wales [Subject: Australian Studies, Environmental Studies, History]