The author, a professor at Duke University and an environmental policy expert shows how drinking water highlights the most pressing issues of our time, from globalization and social justice to terrorism and climate change, and how humans have been wrestling with these problems for centuries. When we turn on the tap or twist open a tall plastic bottle, we might not give a second thought to where our drinking water comes from. But how it gets from the...

For two decades, the water in the taps and wells of Mingo County didn't look, smell, or taste right. Could it be the root of the health problems--from kidney stones to cancer--in this Appalachian community? Environmental lawyer Kevin Thompson certainly thought so. For seven years, he waged an epic legal battle against Massey Energy, West Virginia's most powerful coal company, helmed by CEO Don Blankenship. While Massey's lawyers worked out of a gray...