This innovative collected work offers a new way of understanding history, society, and climate by placing water at the center of human life. Focusing on monsoon Asia – home to nearly half the world's population – it explores how oceans, rivers, monsoons, and even humidity have shaped cultures, economies, politics, and everyday survival for centuries. Bringing together historians, anthropologists, geographers, and environmental scholars, the volume connects local waterscapes to regional and global Earth systems, showing how human actions have reshaped the hydrological cycle with planetary consequences. Through vivid case studies ranging from river basins and coastal cities to human bodies, beliefs, and technologies, the book reveals water as both a life-giving force and a source of risk, power, and conflict. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

‘This superb collection commits to water as both pathway and paradigm for rethinking colonial and cultural histories, and environmental knowledge writ large—from ancient currents to climate-changed cosmologies. The Hydrosphere of Monsoon Asia is a powerful, careful work of interdisciplinary scholarship.’

Jeremy Schmidt - Queen Mary University of London

‘This vibrant collection of essays provides an exciting set of insights into water and human culture across Asia. The Hydrosphere of Monsoon Asia is a landmark contribution that will resonate across multiple disciplines.’

Matthew Gandy - University of Cambridge

‘This treasure trove of new scholarship on the waterscapes of Asia addresses enduring questions about political power, agrarian and urban economies, and cultural practices, through our present prism of climate change. Its remarkable scale, variety, and depth makes this volume a valuable companion for students of environmental history, geography, and anthropology.’

Amita Baviskar - Ashoka University