Heart of Dryness: How the Last Bushmen Can Help Us Endure the Coming Age of Permanent Drought

by James G. Workman

Book Overview

The dramatic story of the Bushmen of the Kalahari is a cautionary tale about water in the twenty-first century and offers unexpected solutions for our time. "We don't govern water. Water governs us,"... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802715583
• ISBN13: 9780802715586
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Walker & Company
• Length: 323 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

A life changing read!

This a book that raises conciousness on SO many levels! It is written straight from the heart of a person who has spent his career understanding water on a global level and people need to wake up and listen to his ideas before it is too late! The planet can exist without people just fine, it is people who cannot continue to exist without understanding how to coexist with the planet. Nature is stronger than we are and will not allow us to overtax our resources. We need to live within nature's boundaries or the earth will not be habitable to humans. The story is very well written and intriquing, almost a thriller, it just happens to be very real and on target for today's world. His suggestions on how to help our already very real problems with water are pragmatic and sensible. Everyone should read this book!

Astonishing Book!

This is one of the most important environmental books written since the publication of Rachel Carson's, Silent Spring, or Thomas Berry's, The Dream of the Earth. Workman takes on the looming global water shortages that will face our us in the very near future, asserting that the urgency of the problem cannot be ignored any longer. The author takes on a case study of the Kalahari Bushmen documenting their marginalization and oppression at the hands of state policy in Botswana. This policy documents the life struggles of a band of Bushmen who refused to participate in the Botswana government relocation program to expel them from the Kalahari region where they have lived for thousands of years. The aim of the policy follows other well documented colonization scenarios of other indigenous peoples; the aim being to usurp their self determination, take away their rights and freedom, and destroy their cultural identity. With the goal of assimilating them into life-long social dependence on government agencies by assigning them to concentration camps. We have seen these efforts replicated world wide in the United States where first peoples were confined to reservations, or in Australia with the aboriginal peoples. In every case, the oppression is so egregious that it leads to massive alcoholism, and collective despondence by taking away an ancient cultural indentity on the land. To this end, Workmann diligently documents the manner of the oppression by showing the systematic evil present in a government policy which bans water, foraging, and hunting, at the risk or threat of death to the Bushman. For thousands of years this life style has been the life blood of the Bushman who followed the traditions their ancestors. Furthermore, these policies were intended to insure the Bushman's compliance with state relocation to camps for the sake of creating indentured servitude to the state. The single choice Bushmen had under this policy was die in their ancestral lands, or be relocated to concentration camps. The genocidal policy (like others documented world wide) aims to crush any indigenous life-style for the sake of opening the Bushmen's territory to corporate exploitation by the likes of the diamond monopoly run by De Beers. Or as Workman notes, is intended to open the ancestral territory for eco travel by western elites seeking pseudo adventures through trophy hunting of big game on the endangered species list. Perhaps the most moving story is the author's relationship with a pariticular group of Bushmen led by the Mmatriarch Qoroxloo. Workman impeccably documents this group and their struggle for survival. During a particularly stunning attempt of the government to crush any further resistance, government soldiers encircle the camp of this still defiant group of Bushmen to insure compliance with the policy; so to hasten their death through denial of water, or foraging of moisture rich plants. The Matriarch Qoroxloo decides to sneak thro

Lessons of the Kalahari for the rest of us

My parents live near Lake Hartwell on the Georgia-South Carolina border and they have been learning the hard way about extended droughts. The lake has dropped significantly and retreated away from the trophy houses of successful Atlanta lawyers and doctors. Wells have gone dry. Streams are being dammed up for lawn and garden watering. The Bushmen have a culture and lifestyle built around a lack of water, a lack which could be coming to many of us used to a post-industrial consumer culture. The author, James Workman, was able, as a trusted outsider, to follow the Bushmen struggles with water, with modernity, and with the Botswana government. The focus of the book is definitely the water, but there's a lot of interesting material on the fight over indigenous rights as well. This is an enlightened and perceptive book of interest for both the treatment of Bushmen culture and their water management lessons. Though I have traveled a bit through Southern Africa (including Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe) I never had an opportunity to learn much about the local water conservation efforts, or the Bushmen culture. This book has fixed that.

Touching narrative

"Heart of Dryness" by James G Workman is an extraordinary account of the Kalihari Bushmen's struggle for survival in Botswana, Africa. Mr. Workman combines years of public service, scholarly research and fieldwork to the project, allowing him to make connections between the global and the local as only he can. As the earth's climate warms, Mr. Workman contends that the insights gained from how the Bushmen have adapted to conditions of acute water scarcity can prove invaluable in guiding humanity towards a more sustainable future. Mr. Workman's book profits from his time spent among the Bushmen, to whom he became a trusted friend and ally. The Bushmen shared their survival strategies for coping in a drought-stricken environment, revealing their resourcefulness, ingenuity and humanity. Qoroxloo, the matriarch of one particular clan, is especially revered for her wisdom and unselfishness; the story of her refusal to surrender her autonomy in the face of hostility from Botswana's government provides inspiration to the Bushmen and to all who read Mr. Workman's touching narrative. Throughout the book, the experiences of the Bushmen are compared and contrasted with the industrialized world's increasingly difficult attempts to manage its finite water resources. We learn that the Bushmen have developed sophisticated life strategies that allows them to live within the constraints imposed by water, understanding that humans do not govern water: water governs us. However, the lust for diamonds has spelled trouble for the Bushmen as Botswana's government attempts to oust the inhabitants of the Kalihari from what was previously thought to have been worthless land, and bringing the issue of economic development versus human rights to light. (Of course, Mr. Workman excels at drawing our attention to the irony of the squandering of precious water resources essential to human life in exchange for access to a commodity that can be replicated flawlessly in a laboratory.) As Botswana and other nations find it more difficult to find the water necessary for expanding their economies, Mr. Workman suggests that humanity must redefine its relationship with water in a manner that is more aligned with Bushmen values, including the Bushmen's non-ideological ethic of responsible ownership of the gifts that nature has bestowed to humankind. I highly recommend this remarkably perceptive, humane and well-informed book to everyone.