Off The Map: Lost Spaces, Invisible Cities, Forgotten Islands, Feral Places And What They Tell Us About The World

Author: Alastair Bonnett

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $25.00 AUD
  • : 9781781313619
  • : Quarto Publishing Group UK
  • : Aurum Press
  • : February 2015
  • : 24.99
  • : April 2015
  • :
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Alastair Bonnett
  • : Other book format
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Barcode 9781781313619
9781781313619

Description

'A fizzingly entertaining and enlightening book' Daily Telegraph
'Mesmerising' Geographical Magazine
'A fascinating delve into uncharted, forgotten lost places. But it's not just a trivia-tastic anthology of remote destinations but a nifty piece of psycho-geography, explaining our human need for these cartographical   conundrums.' Wanderlust
In a world of Google Earth, in which it is easy to believe that every discovery has been made and every adventure already had, Off the Map is a stunning testament to how mysterious our planet still is.
From forgotten enclaves to floating islands, from hidden villages to New York gutter spaces, Off the Map charts the hidden corners of our planet. And while these are not necessarily places you would choose to visit on holiday - Hobyo, the pirate capital of Somalia, or Zheleznogorsk, a secret military town in Russia - they each carry a story about the strangeness of place and our need for a geography that understands our hunger for the fantastic and the unexpected.
But it also shows us that topophilia, the love of place, is a fundamental part of what it is to be human. Whether you are an urban explorer or an armchair traveller, Off the Map will inspire and enchant. You'll never look at a map in quite the same way again.
 
 

Author description

ALASTAIR BONNETT is Professor of Social Geography at Newcastle University. Previous books include What is Geography? (Sage, 2008) and How to Argue (Pearson, 2001). He has also contributed to history and current affairs magazines on a wide variety of topics, such as world population and radical nostalgia. Alastair was editor of the avant-garde, psychogeographical, magazine Transgressions: A Journal of Urban Exploration between 1994-2000. He was also involved for many years in situationist and anarchist politics. His latest research projects are about memories of the city and themes of loss and yearning in modern politics.