Ross, C. 2024. Liquid empire. Water and power in the colonial world. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691211442, 464 p., (Hardback) $39.95
(URL: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691211442/liquid-empire)
Maurits W. Ertsen
Delft University of Technology, m.w.ertsen@tudelft.nl
To cite this Review: Ertsen, M.W. (2025). Review of “Liquid Empire. Water and Power in the Colonial World”, Princeton University Press by Correy Ross, Water Alternatives, http://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/boh/item/385-empire
In past, present or future, water was, is and will be a shaping factor of societies. In the huge body of scholarly work on water and society, water has been conceptualized as shaping both autocracies and democracies. We need to go beyond these simplifications and develop a finer-grained perspective on how water, human agency and power relations are intertwined. In his latest book Liquid Empire, Corey Ross takes up that issue for the colonial world of the 18th to the 20th century. Ross aims to show how water was at the center of imperial power. In just under 400 pages, Liquid Empire is built on six larger chapters arranged around the themes of irrigation (Chapter 2), reclamation (Chapter 3), floods (Chapter 4), fish (Chapter 5), cities (Chapter 6) and energy (Chapter 7), with an Introduction, a final Chapter on the decolonial period and an Epilogue providing the required contextualization. Chapter 8 does provide a useful insight how all these histories can still be recognized today, as they have shaped and continue to shape current water-related issues in what is now often referred to as ‘the Global South’.
Ross’ book is evidently a huge effort, with clear evidence of much reading and thinking by the author, written down in an engaging way – even when I got a little tired of all these witty fluidity and other water-related metaphors throughout the book… But I might be too engaged in the topic to appreciate these anymore. I would argue it is also evident that the book shows some evidence of being the product of a long writing process, with different types of source material available to the author and possibly with some chapters written with specific audiences in mind. The six chapters can be grouped into two types, even given that they all discuss specific topics and/or themes. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 are what I would label as ‘case-based’, in the sense that the texts are structured around larger descriptions of selected cases. On the other hand, the three ‘thematic’ chapters 5, 6 and 7 start with a general overview, show more connection to non-colonial world, and use shorter case-related illustrations. Within this two-way partition, there are also some specific characterizations of individual chapters. The flood chapter reads partly like a text that includes more theoretical and conceptual considerations too, whereas the fish chapter is the most general text, without cases in separate paragraphs and moving forward in time the most of all chapters.
Writing this type of book, with its many details that – obviously – are often based on studies in even more detail by other scholars, typically runs the risk of not being as accurate as perhaps required. I will not use the term ‘as accurate as possible’, because I do acknowledge that including all the details in ways that do justice to all the possible angles on an issue is impossible and goes beyond the purposes of this type of books – more on that issue below. However, it will not be surprising after these sentences that I do want to discuss some case material as an example. When discussing irrigation in the Netherlands East Indies on page 92, Ross suggests that in the first decade of the 20th century, after the so-called Solo Valley Project was stopped by the government, a preference for smaller irrigation projects developed. The three references that are apparently supporting this claim are listed in note 70 on the same page. This list is actually a problem, as the claim about the preference for smaller projects is mentioned explicitly by only one reference (Ravesteijn 1997). The other two references mentioned in the note (Moon 2007 and Ertsen 2010) simply do not make that specific statement – with my own book even denying a big shift in irrigation-related focus at the time. Furthermore, Ross refers to the well-known idea of ‘agrarian involution’ on Java (p195-196). I am sure many readers will recognize the term and understand its implications, but they may not know that this claim by Geertz (1963) has long been disproven through thorough historical (statistical and ecological) work (like Hüsken (1988) and Van Schaik (1986)). I do not mention these examples to discredit Ross’ book, as there is much to admire, but I want to show the vulnerability of writing overarching books when it comes to making certain claims on political positions – especially when these positions are still recognizable in current water-related debates.
Concerning these debates, whether historical or current, I am not so sure that these are restricted to the ‘Global South’ either. For sure, I do agree with Ross that colonial policies, infrastructures and legacies are still influencing current policies, infrastructures and activities in former colonial areas. It is also perfectly ok to focus on the colonial world, given that water was clearly a key factor in the construction of that world – and one needs to restrict oneself anyway. Having said that, I think it does make sense to not forget too easily that many of the discussions that Ross shares also apply to regions like Europe and the United States of America – including unequal relations of power, exclusion of certain groups in society, and environmental degradation. For sure, Ross’ statement that “what was new in the empires of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was the sheer scope and pace of transformation” (p5) is fair enough, but can hardly be reserved for colonial settings given the same scope and pace of transformations elsewhere either. Again, I do not suggest at all that Ross should have included all these regions as well. Please no, the book is already overwhelming enough! I am perfectly happy with the focus of Liquid Empires as is. I just am quite curious what can connect all these waters from the various colonial settings, because I see similar issues elsewhere. How are we to understand ‘water’ as a unifying empirical, historical and/or conceptual category?
Well, I do not think that the book answers that question, despite some strong claims to the contrary. Let me emphasize again that Ross does offer a very valuable, and quite rare, larger-scale overview of water-related issues and topics. Selecting topics like fish and urban water, going beyond typical themes like irrigation and hydropower that are more generally related to (reserved for!) imperial power, worked out really well. Granted that even Ross cannot escape his own observation that a history of water usually means that “water itself features as no more than a medium of transport for goods, people and ideas” (p9), I find it more crucial to doubt whether his book brings more unity through all its historical wetness. Ross may aim for the “[r]arest of all […] studies that tackle the question of how the circulation of water and its multiple uses connected such histories together” (p8-9), but his thematic organization does not show such connections. The thematic classification of India’s water, for example, means that we get many different versions of India depending on the chapter. Despite the amount of Indian examples throughout the book, however, we do not encounter a version of India being connected through its water histories.
I would argue that the final two chapters (8 and Epilogue) do not serve as a conclusion on this question of connected circulations either. As already mentioned, chapter 8 does show the relations between past and present quite well, but keeps the challenges general and neatly separated in specific categories too. I would not know how to do it otherwise, but then I probably would not have promised in the Introduction to show how circulation and use of water connects colonial histories together. The Epilogue reads like a political pamphlet rather than an historical analysis. People are entitled to their political opinions, and I certainly see much in what Ross brings about, but I am not too sure it serves well in the book. Overall, I did enjoy reading Liquid Empire, even when Ross remains much more descriptive at the end than he may have wished for at the start. But, could that actually have been otherwise?
References
Ertsen M.W. (2010). Locales of happiness. Colonial irrigation in the Netherlands East Indies and its remains, 1830 – 1980. Delft: VSSD Press
Geertz C. (1963). Agricultural Involution: The Processes of Ecological Change in Indonesia. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press
Hüsken F. (1988). Een dorp op Java. Sociale differentiatie in een boerengemeenschap, 1850-1980. Overveen: Ascasea
Moon S. (2007). Technology and ethical idealism: a history of development in the Netherlands East Indies. Leiden: Research School of Asian, African and Amerindian Studies (CNWS) Publications 156
Ravesteijn, W. (1997). De Zegenrijke Heeren der Wateren -Irrigatie en staat op Java, 1832-1942. Delft: Delft University Press
Van Schaik, A. (1986). Colonial control and peasant resources in Java: agricultural involution reconsidered. Amsterdam: Nederlandse Geografische Studies 14.
