Dr. Sarah Hines explores residents of Cochabamba struggle for access to water that is linked to broader historical processes such as the dispossession and dismantling of indigenous communities in the 19th century, the Bolivian revolution of 1952, and the dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s.

Her book argues that the Cochabambinos defeated privatization in the Water War in 2000 because they defended something they had fought for and won decades earlier, especially in the context of the 1952 revolution.