FACT & FICTION
LIQUID GROWTH & ARID ECONOMICS
Wednesday, 10 December | 3pm UK
ONLINE | Registration (Free) details below
Storing water in the wet season to use it in the dry season has been an ancient practice in arid tropical civilisations. From the early 20th century, water extraction on a scale large enough to transform whole regions and create new cities improved dramatically. This panel, focused on the recently published Water and Development: The Troubled Economic History of the Arid Tropics (2025), will discuss water, development and the economic emergence of the arid tropics through the 20th century.
SPEAKERS: Dr Leela Fernandes is a political scientist and author of Governing Water in India: Inequality, Water, and the State (2022); David Gilmartin is Professor of History at North Carolina State University, and author of Blood and Water: The Indus River Basin in Modern History (2015); Corey Ross is Professor & Director of the Institute of European Global Studies, University of Basel, and author of Liquid Empire: Water and Power in the Colonial World (2024); Tirthankar Roy (@RoyHistory1) is Professor of Economic History at LSE, and author of Water and Development: The Troubled Economic History of the Arid Tropics (2025).
DISCUSSANT: David Lewis (@lewisd100) is Professor of Anthropology & Development at LSE, and author of How Policy Forgets: Time and Memory in International Development (forthcoming) which analyses the history of flood control in Bangladesh.
CHAIR: Dr Nilanjan Sarkar is Deputy Director, LSE South Asia Centre (@SAsiaLSE).
This event is part of our 'Fact & Fiction' series.
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Registration is free but required. Please e-mail southasiacentre@lse.ac.uk to register; the livestream link will be sent to all registered attendees on the day of the event.