Customer Reviews

Irrigating India : My Five Years as a USAID Advisor

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As a former University of Arizona Hydrology student of Dr. Resnick, I laughed and cried in reading Sol's terrific, engaging insight to practical rural water-resources and community development in India in the late 1950s. Based on my own observations, I confirm that Sol tells it like it was. And in some ways still is. I stayed up the night to read the book to my wife. We shared the joy of Sol's adventure to improve life in rural India by training Indian engineers and working with local people to improve irrigation and drinking-water supplies and to reduce the terrible effects of droughts. I've shared Sol's and Elaine's book with my international development colleagues and my own students. Sol's integrity and ingenuity, and love of people, justice, culture, community, and hydrology come across loud and clear, modestly and humorously. A fine read for anyone interested in people, development, practical hydrology, or India. Reading "Irrigating India" reminded me why I became a hydrologist and taught me more about myself.

Irrigating India: My Five Years As A USAID Advisor is the story of Sol Resnick, a USAID advisor who served faithfully in India from 1952 to 1957, as told in his own worlds to Elaine Minow Resnick. Sol Resnick, a civil and agricultural engineer, worked hard to help make the basic human needs of food and water stable and attainable to a populace that was previously at the bitter mercy of the annual rainfall. He would later look on that time as the best five years of his life. Heartwarming, inspiring, and highly recommended to students of international studies as well as the modern history and agricultural development of India.

Compelling tales bring the people and the land of India vividly to life. Stories of practical engineering, working with villagers and farmers, designing and building irrigation systems and wells. Most of all, stories about the people, the culture, the politics and the country. Travel rivers, meet tigers, have dinner with Nehru, and make wheelbarrows for the village children so that everyone participates in building the future of rural India.

A tremendous story told with great warmth and humor. It conveys the struggle to stay healthy, the process of adapting to local cultures, and the overwhelming sense of joy in receiving gratitude from people you help. Sol Resnick is able to find elements of humor and poetic irony in the daily activities and chance occurrences that shaped his life. Irrigating India also provides an absorbing historical perspective on India. Having served in the Peace Corps for three years, the book brought back memories of my own experiences. I highly recommend this book!

Armchair adventurers could not ask for a better book than this heartwarming story of a man who helped to bring water -- and a lot more -- to India. It is also the story of what India brought to him, with vivid descriptions of the sights, sounds, tastes, and textures of post-WWII India and of the people he met there. Sol Resnick is an engaging story-teller, and his good humor and passion for his work make this impossible to put down. He loved his work, the people he met, and the places he traveled, and you will, too.