Alastair Bonnett, a professor of geography at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, writes about places: some unusual, others remote, and even imaginary. Following *Places Off the Map* and *Beyond the Map*, Blackie Books has completed the author’s trilogy in Spain with *The Map of the Islands*: A fascinating journey to the most mysterious, terrifying, and paradisiacal islands—a work brimming with discoveries and curiosities about island territories and how we have transformed them, sometimes for the better and sometimes forever.
There is something about islands that captivates us. Perhaps it is their isolation—that promise of silence and stillness that makes them ideal refuges for disconnecting from the world. The unknown still pulses within them: vertigo, fascination, risk, pleasure. Yet many are disappearing. Every year, climate change wipes formations that have witnessed centuries of history from the map. But human beings—those contradictory creatures—also know how to build even as they destroy. And so new islands spring up: because of geopolitical disputes, to attract tourists, on a billionaire’s whim, or as a result of scientific research.
There are countless examples. There are military islands, sacred islands, islands that have been turned into dumps, and islands used as places of exile for the sick and prisoners. There are also islands that no longer exist, swallowed up by nature, or that have become dangerous due to radiation, such as Bikini Atoll in the Pacific, scarred by decades of nuclear testing. There is Runit Island, where the United States stored 73,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste under a concrete dome that rising sea levels threaten to crack. There is also Seasteading, a project funded by the founder of PayPal, which aims to build habitable platforms on the high seas, outside the jurisdiction of any national law. Not to mention the old fortresses along the Thames, the psychiatric hospitals and prisons on the outskirts of Venice, or Fantasy Island, a leisure complex near Singapore that sells tamed nature for travelers’ enjoyment. Never before have we fantasized so much about escaping to an island. Perhaps that is why it is worth taking a look at their captivating past and what lies ahead for them.
Where can I buy it? The map of the islands (€23) is available for purchase at blackiebooks.org.
