A World of Islands: An Island Studies Reader

  A World of Islands: An Island Studies Reader

US$35.95; CAN$39.95; EURO €27.95; plus 10% for packing, shipping, and GST 1. Justification Close to 10% of the world's population - some 600 million people - live on islands today. One fourth of the world's sovereign states consist of islands or archipelagos. The combined land area and exclusive economic zone of the world’s islands takes up over one sixth of the Earth’s surface. Islands have pioneered the emergence of such disciplines as biogeography and anthropology; they are typical ‘hot spots’ for both biological diversity and international political tension. Islands offer distinct identities and spaces in an increasingly homogenous and placeless world. A World of Islands provides a global, research-based, comprehensive and pluri-disciplinary overview of the study of islands. The expertise and insights of 42 scholars and contributors offer a uniuqe collection of theoretical principles, ideas, observations and policy proposals from, and for, the study of islands and island life.

 

2. Potential Readership This book is an Island Studies Reader. It is meant to provide a thoroughly referenced, comprehensive and pluri-disciplinary overview of islands. It will prove invaluable to a variety of specialists and generalists, including:

• Professionals, particularly physical and social scientists, who are interested in islands, work on them, spend time on them and/or live on them;
• students and scholars - especially research-driven academics and graduate students - who wish to consider islands conceptually or analytically as a backdrop to other continental episodes;
• libraries of higher education institutions serving islands, and interested in island studies;
• civil society groups who run / work with island-based research and initiatives;
• senior officials engaged in public policy, at national, federal or provincial level.

In particular, A World of Islands: An Island Studies Reader will seek to be the authoritative, English-language reference text to those artists, scholars, researchers and public policy officials and analysts which are keen to adopt an ‘island imagination’ to their work, study or specific inquiry. This is a 640 page, 150,000 word, soft-bound text, with various black and white maps, figures and prints. It is divided into four sub-sections and sixteen chapters (see more below), respecting the physical and the human approach to the subject identified in the title.
Each chapter includes arguments, explanations, figures and diagrams representing island life froma specific disciplinary perspective; most have an annotated, island-specific, case study that would serve as an application of the chapter’s arguments. Author: Godfrey Baldacchino – gbaldacchino@upei.ca


Author: Stephen A. Royle (Reader in Geography at Queen’s University, Belfast. Intrepid Island Traveler and Assiduous Commentator. Author of A Geography of Islands, 2001 - s.royle@qub.ac.uk).
  This chapter documents models of island formation (in the context of plate tectonic theory) and the manner in which they emerge from sub-sea development (in the case of oceanic islands): from subsiding landmasses (in the case of continental islands); or from downriver sediment accretion (in the case of river islands). Volcanic, Limestone and Coral Island Landscapes and their characteristics. Influence of Climate on Island Environments, with particular reference to Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean and a select number of seas (Baltic, Caribbean, Mediterranean, South China ...). Major / total impact of such phenomena as hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanic activity, landslides and El Niño, global warming and sea-level rise. Author: Patrick D. Nunn. (Dr Nunn is Professor of Geography at the University of the South Pacific, Fiji Campus. He is the author of OceanicIslands, 1994 - nunn_p@usp.ac.fj).
A review of the shrubs, flowers and trees that are members of island eco-systems and their specific evolutionary patterns, including endemism. Impact of invasive species. Case Study of Aldabra Atoll, Indian Ocean. A focused review of the animals, insects, birds, fish and reptiles that are members of island eco-systems and their specific evolutionary patterns, including endemism. Impact of invasive species. Case Study to focus on the Scottish Isles. Author: Dr Sam (RJ) Berry is Professor Emeritus of Genetics at University College, London, UK - rjberry@ucl.ac.uk ).

Chapter 7 – Archaeology Human (often dramatic) impact on islands throughout the ages. Island Archaeology. Settlers versus Natives. Evolution of specific island culture(s). Case Study: New Zealand and its Islands. Author: Atholl Anderson. (Dr Anderson is an Island Archaeologist based at the AustralianNationalUniversity - aja@coombs.anu.edu.au).
Authors: Andrew Cliff, Peter Haggett and Matthew Smallman-Raynor.

Chapter 9 – War and Security
Section 3: Island Development Specific influences of insularity on prospects for economic growth and development. Rent-based / MIRAB economies, benign colonialism and ‘upside down colonisation’. The Island Vulnerability Index and its Critique. A case study of French Polynesia. Authors: Edward Warrington & David Milne. (Dr Milne is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the University of Prince Edward Island and Visiting Professor of Public Policy at the University of Malta - david.milne@onvol.net. Dr Warrington lectures in the Department of Public Policy at the University of Malta, Malta, and directs its Institute for Public Administration and Management – edward.warrington@um.edu.mt). Chapter 12 – Tourism Chapter 13 – Migration The over/under/de-population threatening various islands and the effects of flows of people to and from islands. Precarious island settlements. The diaspora. Case Study of the Cook Islands. Author: John Connell (Professor Connell is a prolific contemporary island geographer, based at the University of Sydney, where he currently heads the School of Geosciences. Author of a large number of books and papers, including: Small Worlds, Global Lives: Islands and Migration (1999, co-authored with Russell King) and The Last Colonies (1998, co-authored with Robert Aldrich) - jconnell@mail.usyd.edu.au ). Chapter 14 - Gentrification and Space Wars

One of the keenest disputes involving islands today is between insiders and outsiders, permanent residents and summer sojourners and visitors. The prize is limited space.

Authors: Eric Clark, Karen Johnson, Anna Lundholm & Gunnar Malmberg Dr Clark is a Professor of Human Geography at the University of Lund, Sweden and Editor of the Journal Geografiska Annaler B - Eric.Clark@kulekgeo.lu.se.