Viollet P-L. Water Engineering in Ancient Civilizations: 5, 000 Years of History

CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 2007. — XII, 322 p. — ISBN13: 978-0-203-37531-0 (eBook - PDF).This new book offers an engineer's perspective on the history of water technology and its impact on the development of civilisation.
A Second Edition and translation into English of the French book "L'Hydraulique dans les Civilisations Anciennes".Water professionals, engineers, scientists, and students will find this book fascinating and invaluable to their understanding of the fundamental role of water engineering in the development of civilization. The book abounds with descriptions of hydraulic techniques in the civilizations of the classical era and the Middle Ages, including illustrations and translated descriptions of ancient observers and authors. The work is unique in offering an engineer's perspective not only on the history of water technology, but also demonstration of the genesis of ideas and the transmissions of ideas and technology from one age and civilization to the next. The book is especially noteworthy for its efforts to situate hydraulic developments in their historical and intellectual context.4,000 years of hydraulic development in the East From the era of the early cultivators to the conquests of Alexander the Great.
Hydraulics and the birth of civilization.
From Mesopotamia to the Syrian shore: the land of water pioneers.
Ancient Egypt and the Arabia Felix, the rhythm of the flood seasons.
The maritime civilizations of the Aegean Sea: urban and agricultural hydraulics.
The Empires of the Builders.
Mathematicians and inventors of Alexandria and the Hellenistic world.
Hydraulics in the Roman Empire: driving force of development and symbol of civilization.
Beyond Rome, the East and the Arab world.
Rivers, canals, and hydraulic technology in China.
The mills of the Middle Ages.Chronological Table.
Units of Measurement.
Bibliographic References.