Perspectives

In the study, Albert Zink and his group identify and interpret nuclear DNA in a number of different Egyptian royal mummies and put the existing hypotheses about their identities to the test.

This article discusses the shift in perception regarding polluted water. When did perceptions of polluted water change, when was it no longer considered a part of everyday life? And what caused the tide to turn?

A cultural and historical analysis of the recent past of the Nile Valley shows how interpretations and perceptions of territory, space, and nature are not necessarily indisputably “true” and definitive principles. On the contrary, they are constructed and, therefore, changeable.

The article tells the story of the rise and decline of the significance and visibility of “white coal” and hydroelectricity over the course of the twentieth century.

Using Yung Chang’s 2007 documentary film Up the Yangtze, Weik von Mossner unravels the power struggles accompanying the construction of the world’s largest hydroelectric power plant—the Three Gorges Dam in China.

The article describes how, ultimately, it was precisely the transitory nature of ice that undermined a successful and lasting presentation of power in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The paper addresses various ways that water is constructed as “dangerous,” whether because there is too much (floods), too little (droughts), or because it is polluted. Mauch emphasizes that although water catastrophes have a natural origin, their effects are primarily social.