Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Cool Water Effect: The Geo-Climatic Source of Western Exceptionalism

The Cool Water Effect: The Geo-Climatic Source of Western Exceptionalism

Welzel, Christian
Kruse, Stefan
Brunkert, Lennart

Hardcover

Series: Palgrave Studies in Maritime Politics and Security

International Relations

ISBN10: 3031818601
ISBN13: 9783031818608
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Published: Aug 27 2025
Pages: 491
Weight: 1.69
Height: 1.13 Width: 5.83 Depth: 8.27
Language: English

This open access book unravels the geo-climatic source of the West's emancipatory struggles and why the spirit of these struggles is about to spread around the world beyond its original geo-climatic root--which we describe as the Cool Water (CW-) Condition: that is, the combination of mostly cool seasons with steady rain in coastal proximity. What is so special about the CW-Condition? In a nutshell, the CW-Condition makes water and its derivative resources (i.e., land usable for hunting, fishery, forestry, crop cultivation and cattle herding) so diffuse that any emerging economy only functions with decentral management of water, land and labor. Decentral management infuses local autonomies into the social fabric, so much that evolving forms of social organization--be it family households, religious orders, business corporations or civic associations--mature under self-governance. Experience in self-governance equips social groups with two essential skills: resource mobilization and coalition building. In combination, these skills generate the power to organize grassroots resistance against top-down impositions, such as over-taxation and related forms of resource extraction. As a consequence, the state-building process begins slowly and proceeds as a conflictual affair between rulers' authority ambitions and bottom-up opposition. This conflict steers state formation towards contractual institutional arrangements in which elected assemblies check the executive power of central rulers. Under these checks, government action navigates towards an indiscriminate pursuit of the common good.

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