"RFF Press book"--T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 271-303) and index.

The hydraulic past : irrigation and state formation -- Rise of the colossus -- The future of flow irrigation -- Wells and welfare -- Diminishing returns? -- Aquifers and institutions -- Can the anarchy be tamed? -- Thriving in anarchy.

"In 1947, British India - the part of South Asia that is today's India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh - emerged from the colonial era with the world's largest centrally managed canal irrigation infrastructure. However, as vividly illustrated by Tushaar Shah, the orderly irrigation economy that saved millions of rural poor from droughts and famines is now a vast atomistic system of widely dispersed tube-wells that are drawing groundwater without permits or hindrances. Taming the Anarchy is about the development of this chaos and the prospects to bring it under control. It is about both the massive benefit that the irrigation economy has created and the ill-fare it threatens through depleted aquifers and pollution." "Taming the Anarchy provides a fascinating economic, political, and cultural history of the development and use of technology that is also a history of a society in transition. The book offers powerful ideas and lessons for researchers, economists, historians, and policymakers interested in South Asia, as well as readers who are interested in the water and agricultural futures of other developing countries and regions, including China and Africa."--P. 4 of cover.