Before the huge, steam-driven machines that would cut through Suez and Panama, magnificent canals and aqueducts graced civilizations from ancient times to the Industrial Revolution. In this class, we follow the story of how humans learned to move water. Cultures that began with primitive irrigation channels dug out to water a few meager crops would one day build canals that joined Europe to Asia and the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. These canals changed the world long before the age of steam, internal combustion engines or electric power. And we'll see how human ingenuity used water moving downhill to move boats UPHILL. We'll visit China, Egypt, The Pontine Marshes south of Rome, the French Riviera, the English coal country and, finally, the early American frontier, where a four-foot deep ditch became the information superhighway of its time.