One of the great joys of my work reviewing books on natural history subjects is that, while many times the books arriving for review are expected, occasionally one appears that I otherwise may have quite possibly missed. In some cases this may be just as well; however in others, such as with the recently arrived “A Sustainable Future; 12 Key Areas of Global Concern,” not having the opportunity to discover what their authors had to say would be most regrettable indeed.
When Charles Bowden’s Killing the Hidden Waters was first published in 1977, the population of Arizona – the U.S. state in which he was then living and part of the region in which so much of his narrative takes place – was a little under two-and-a-half million people. In 2003, the year in which his new introduction “What I Learned Watching the Wells Go Down” was added to the fifth paperback printing of the book, the state’s population had risen to over five million. Most who read it thought it both inspired and brilliant, but according to his opening words in the new introduction, he “went wrong.”