Overview

In A History of Water Engineering and Management in Yemen, Ingrid Hehmeyer describes the three-way relationship between water, land, and humans from ancient to medieval and premodern times. As illustrated in case studies from four sites, individual ecosystems necessitated different engineering and management approaches in order to make good use of the scarce water resources for both irrigated agriculture and domestic consumption. Material remains and written sources provide the evidence for a comprehensive examination of continuity and change; technical and managerial struggles, failures, and successes; the question of technology transfer; the impact of the religion of Islam on water use and allocation; and people’s reactions in times of severe crisis.

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Reviews

“This dissertation publication illuminates more than just Old South Arabian names of animals, plants, stones and metals. It also is an excellent source for zoological, botanical and ethnographic data [...] It is well-conceived, the product of discipline and years of research.” Paul A. Yule in Wiener Zeitschrift Für Die Kunde Des Morgenlandes 110 (2020) “A History of Water Engineering and Management in Yemen offers interesting insights into ancient, medieval, and premodern water access practices and various imaginaries of forms of water. Water integrates into people’s lives and fuses with people’s sociocultural and religious norms. It is a stimulating and elaborative read that brings out the totality of water as a resource and its political, economic, and sociocultural facets both in their simple and complex forms. Hehmeyer’s work is valuable for bolstering global studies of technology and puts people as users at the center of STS.” Jethron Ayumbah Akallah, Technology and Culture 63 (2022)

Author Information

Ingrid Hehmeyer, associate professor of history of science and technology at Ryerson University, Toronto (Canada), received her doctorate in agriculture in 1988 and a master of science degree (equivalent) in pharmacy in 1990, both from the University of Bonn (Germany). Amongst her numerous publications on water use and medicine is Herbal Medicine in Yemen: Traditional Knowledge and Practice, and Their Value for Today’s World (ed., with H. Schönig, Leiden, Brill, 2012).

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