A Pattern of Islands

A Pattern of Islands
Author: Arthur Grimble
Publisher: Eland Pub Limited
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2011-02-15
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 9781906011451

The funny, charming, and self-deprecating adventure story of a young man in the Pacific. Living for thirty years in the Gilbert & Ellis Islands, Grimble was ultimately initiated and tattooed according to local tradition, but not before he was severely tested, as when he was used as human bait for a giant octopus. Beyond the hilarious and frightening adventure stories, A Pattern of Islands is also a true testament to the life of these Pacific islanders. Grimble collected stories from the last generation who could remember the full glory of the old pagan ways. This is anthropology with its hair down.

Island of the Blue Dolphins

Island of the Blue Dolphins
Author: Scott O'Dell
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 195
Release: 1960
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0395069629

Far off the coast of California looms a harsh rock known as the island of San Nicholas. Dolphins flash in the blue waters around it, sea otter play in the vast kep beds, and sea elephants loll on the stony beaches. Here, in the early 1800s, according to history, an Indian girl spent eighteen years alone, and this beautifully written novel is her story. It is a romantic adventure filled with drama and heartache, for not only was mere subsistence on so desolate a spot a near miracle, but Karana had to contend with the ferocious pack of wild dogs that had killed her younger brother, constantly guard against the Aleutian sea otter hunters, and maintain a precarious food supply. More than this, it is an adventure of the spirit that will haunt the reader long after the book has been put down. Karana's quiet courage, her Indian self-reliance and acceptance of fate, transform what to many would have been a devastating ordeal into an uplifting experience. From loneliness and terror come strength and serenity in this Newbery Medal-winning classic.

The Return of the Amami Islands

The Return of the Amami Islands
Author: Robert D. Eldridge
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780739107102

"State Department's desire to uphold the Atlantic Charter by rejecting territorial expansion; Amamian activists' assertive argument for reversion to Japanese rule; and the Japanese government's work to reach an agreement with the United States. Eldridge draws on original documents from the reversion movement, several volumes of memoirs and remembrances written by participants in the movement, and numerous declassified documents of the Japanese and U.S. governments.

Natural History of the Islands of California

Natural History of the Islands of California
Author: Allan A. Schoenherr
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 504
Release: 2003-07-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520239180

A book on California's islands that deals with their natural history and geology as well as the history of human habitation.

Islands Beyond the Horizon

Islands Beyond the Horizon
Author: Roger Lovegrove
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2012-09-13
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0191651907

Islands have an irresistible attraction and an enduring appeal. Naturalist Roger Lovegrove has visited many of the most remote islands in the world, and in this book he takes the reader to twenty that fascinate him the most. Some are familiar but most are little known; they range from the storm-bound island of South Georgia and the ice-locked Arctic island of Wrangel to the wind-swept, wave-lashed Mykines and St Kilda. The range is diverse and spectacular; and whether distant, offshore, inhabited, uninhabited, tropical or polar, each is a unique self-contained habitat with a delicately-balanced ecosystem, and each has its own mystique and ineffable magnetism. Central to each story is also the impact of human settlers. Lovegrove recounts unforgettable tales of human endeavour, tragedy, and heroism. But consistently, he has to report on the mankind's negative impact on wildlife and habitats — from the exploitation of birds for food to the elimination of native vegetation for crops. By looking not only at the biodiversity of each island, but also the uneasy relationship between its wildlife and the involvement of man, he provides a richly detailed account of each island, its diverse wildlife, its human history, and the efforts of conservationists to retain these irreplaceable sites.

Anthropocene Islands

Anthropocene Islands
Author: Jonathan Pugh
Publisher: University of Westminster Press
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2021-06-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1914386019

'A must read … a new analytical agenda for the Anthropocene, coherently drawing out the power of thinking with islands.' – Elena Burgos Martinez, Leiden University ‘This is an essential book. [The] analytics they propose … offer both a critical agenda for island studies and compass points through which to navigate the haunting past, troubling present, and precarious future.’ – Craig Santos Perez, University of Hawai’i, Manoa ‘All academic books should be like this: hard to put down. Informative, careful, sometimes devasting, yet absolutely necessary - if you read one book about the Anthropocene let it be this. You will never think of islands in the same way again.’ – Kimberley Peters, University of Oldenburg ‘ … a unique journey into the Anthropocene. Critical, generous and compelling’. — Nigel Clark, Lancaster University The island has become a key figure of the Anthropocene – an epoch in which human entanglements with nature come increasingly to the fore. For a long time, islands were romanticised or marginalised, seen as lacking modernity’s capacities for progress, vulnerable to the effects of catastrophic climate change and the afterlives of empire and coloniality. Today, however, the island is increasingly important for both policy-oriented and critical imaginaries that seek, more positively, to draw upon the island’s liminal and disruptive capacities, especially the relational entanglements and sensitivities its peoples and modes of life are said to exhibit. Anthropocene Islands: Entangled Worlds explores the significant and widespread shift to working with islands for the generation of new or alternative approaches to knowledge, critique and policy practices. It explains how contemporary Anthropocene thinking takes a particular interest in islands as ‘entangled worlds’, which break down the human/nature divide of modernity and enable the generation of new or alternative approaches to ways of being (ontology) and knowing (epistemology). The book draws out core analytics which have risen to prominence (Resilience, Patchworks, Correlation and Storiation) as contemporary policy makers, scholars, critical theorists, artists, poets and activists work with islands to move beyond the constraints of modern approaches. In doing so, it argues that engaging with islands has become increasingly important for the generation of some of the core frameworks of contemporary thinking and concludes with a new critical agenda for the Anthropocene.

Between Two Islands

Between Two Islands
Author: Sherri Grasmuck
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 1991
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780520071490

"This is the best available single-volume treatment of the causes and consequences of Dominican migration to and from the 'two islands' ... Without a doubt, this book represents by far the best study to date of Dominican immigration to New York, and it will become not only the definitive statement on the topic for some time to come but also a work of great comparative value for contemporary theory and research on the immigration and incorporation of newcomers to the United States." Ruben G. Rumbaut, San Diego State University.

The Islands at the End of the World

The Islands at the End of the World
Author: Austin Aslan
Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2014-08-05
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0385374216

In this fast-paced survival story set in Hawaii, electronics fail worldwide, the islands become completely isolated, and a strange starscape fills the sky. Leilani and her father embark on a nightmare odyssey from Oahu to their home on the Big Island. Leilani’s epilepsy holds a clue to the disaster, if only they can survive as the islands revert to earlier ways. A powerful story enriched by fascinating elements of Hawaiian ecology, culture, and warfare, this captivating and dramatic debut from Austin Aslan is the first of two novels. The author has a master’s degree in tropical conservation biology from the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Praise for Islands at the End of the World: “A riveting tale of belonging, family, overcoming perceived limitations, and finding a home.”--School Library Journal, Starred "Aslan’s debut honors Hawaii’s unique cultural strengths--family ties and love of home, amplified by geography and history--while remaining true to a genre that affirms the mysterious grandeur of the universe waiting to be discovered."--Kirkus Reviews, Starred "Aslan’s debut is a riveting tale of belonging, family, overcoming perceived limitations, and finding a home."--School Library Journal, Starred

Island of Shame

Island of Shame
Author: David Vine
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2011-01-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691149836

David Vine recounts how the British & US governments created the Diego Garcia base, making the native Chagossians homeless in the process. He details the strategic significance of this remote location & also describes recent efforts by the exiles to regain their territory.

Islands, the Universe, Home

Islands, the Universe, Home
Author: Gretel Ehrlich
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 114
Release: 2017-02-21
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1504042875

Ten essays on nature, ritual, and philosophy “that are so point-blank vital you nearly need to put the book down to settle yourself” (San Francisco Chronicle). Gretel Ehrlich’s world is one of solitude and wonder, pain and beauty, and these elements give life to her stunning prose. Ever since her acclaimed debut, The Solace of Open Spaces, she has illuminated the particular qualities of nature and the self with graceful precision. In Islands, the Universe, Home, Ehrlich expands her explorations, traveling to the remote reaches of the earth and deep into her soul. She tells of a voyage of discovery in northern Japan, where she finds her “bridge to heaven.” She captures a “light moving down a mountain slope.” She sees a ruined city in the face of a fire-scarred mountain. Above all, she recalls what a painter once told her about art when she was twelve years old, as she sat for her portrait: “You have to mix death into everything. Then you have to mix life into that.” In this unforgettable collection, Ehrlich mixes life and death, real and sacred, to offer a stunning vision of our world that is both achingly familiar and miraculously strange. According to National Book Award–winning author Andrea Barrett, these essays are “as spare and beautiful as the landscape from which they’ve grown. . . . Each one is a pilgrimage into the secrets of the heart.”