Title Pipe dreams : water and empire in Central Asia's Aral Sea Basin / Maya K. Peterson, University of California, Santa Cruz

Published New York : Cambridge University Press, 2019 ©2019

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Description 1 online resource (xxii, 399 pages) : illustrations, maps Series Studies in Environment and History Studies in environment and history. Contents Cover; Half-title; Series information; Title page; Copyright information; Dedication; Contents; List of Figures; Acknowledgments; Note on People, Places, and Institutions; Introduction; Environment and Empire; The Making of Central Asia; The Irrigation Age: Back to the Future?; Cotton and the Civilizing Mission; Sources and Methodologies; 1 The Land beyond the Rivers: Russians on the Amu Darya and Syr Darya; Rivers to the Sea; A Great Eurasian Waterway; Customary Water Use; Irrigating Russian Turkestan; Muddied Waters; Conclusion; 2 Eastern Eden: Irrigation and Empire on the Hungry Steppe A New Irrigator Canal Labors; The ''August Benefactor''; The August Patient; A Russo-Asiatic Ruler; The Legend of the Thirsty Steppe; Conclusion; 3 To Create a New Turkestan: Water Governance in the Irrigation Age; Bringing Order to the Hungry Steppe; Managing Water; White Gold Fever; Financing Irrigation; Governing Water; Restricting Rice; Conclusion; 4 The Land of Bread and Honey?: Settlement and Subversion in the Land of Seven Rivers; The Valley of the River Chu; White Coal for White Gold; Settlers and Nomads; Crossing Boundaries; War and Revolt; Patching Fault Lines; Conclusion 5 Sundering the Chains of Nature: Bolshevik Visions for Central AsiaWater Management, Soviet-Style; Hunger in Turkestan; Irrigation Reconstruction; Nationalizing Water Management; Reforming Land and Water; Greening the Deserts; Water Management on Trial; Conclusion; 6 From Shockwork to People's Construction: Socialist Labor on Stalin's Canals; Taming the Wild River; The Vakhsh Irrigation Construction Project; Building a Modern Soviet Socialist Republic; Constructing Stalin's Canals; Forging New Soviet People; Masters of the Valley; The Legacy of Vakhshstroi; Making History on the Great Canals Conclusion Epilogue: The Fate of the Aral Sea; Conclusion; Glossary; Bibliography; Archival Sources and Special Collections; Historical Newspapers, Journals, and Other Periodicals; Published Works; Primary Sources and Document Collections; Secondary Works; Index Summary The drying up of the Aral Sea - a major environmental catastrophe of the late twentieth century - is deeply rooted in the dreams of the irrigation age of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a time when engineers, scientists, politicians, and entrepreneurs around the world united in the belief that universal scientific knowledge, together with modern technologies, could be used to transform large areas of the planet from 'wasteland' into productive agricultural land. Though ostensibly about bringing modernity, progress, and prosperity to the deserts, the transformation of Central Asia's landscapes through tsarist- and Soviet-era hydraulic projects bore the hallmarks of a colonial experiment. Examining how both regimes used irrigation-age fantasies of bringing the deserts to life as a means of claiming legitimacy in Central Asia, Maya K. Peterson brings a fresh perspective to the history of Russia's conquest and rule of Central Asia Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Print version record Subject Water resources development -- Asia, Central Rural development -- Asia, Central BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Real Estate -- General. Politics and government Rural development Water resources development SUBJECT Asia, Central -- History -- 20th century Soviet Union -- Politics and government. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85125832 Subject Central Asia Soviet Union Genre/Form History Form Electronic book ISBN 1108675050 9781108675055 9781108673075 1108673074

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