Review: Liquid power: contested hydro-modernities in twentieth-century Spain, by Erik Swyngedouw

Abstract

Liquid power traces the political-ecological dynamics and theemergence of networks and imaginaries that resulted in thetumultuous transformation of the Spanish hydro-social landscape throughout the 20th and early 21st century, a process that wasridden with contradictions, tensions and conficts. The text is richin footnotes, and draws from archival sources as well as the author's own images, figures, tables, maps and graphs, makingthe narrative livelier and helping the reader to get a sense of themagnitude of the ecological transformation under scrutiny. Thebook is theoretically and methodologically informed by politicalecology, historical-geographical materialism, environmentalhistory and Science and Technology Studies (STS). The crisis ofCuba, which signified the loss of the last Spanish colony in 1898,serves as the starting point, while another crisis, the financial crisis and social malaise exploding in 2010, marks an end to theempirical narrative.