Islands of Abandonment

Life in the Post-Human Landscape

Hardcover

Published Jan. 21, 2021 by William Collins.

ISBN:
978-0-00-832976-1
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4 stars (7 reviews)

6 editions

Review of 'Islands of Abandonment' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Really good, original and well executed. The author travels the world to see first hand how time has transformed places humankind has abandoned, whether due to natural disaster, to historical events, or to accidents. She tells the history that led the place to where it is now, and reflects on the factors. We go, amongst others, to an abandoned island in Scotland, to Detroit, to Chernobyl.
Part documentary work, part lyrical narration of the impact humans have on the environment and what happens when they're not around anymore, at traits leaning on the distopyan (but it's all real stuff), with a good mix of optimism and pessimism, and of course a realisation of the underlying presence of climate change. Really a great read.

Frustrating, inert, unsympathetic

1 star

Read this with my wife, as it seemed it up our alley and we might learn something etc. But the author does not really seem to be calling for any action to counter the destruction of the Earth; if anything, discounts it by talking about faith, about seeing weeds grow in a parking lot, and failing to ever deal with the larger forces of imperialism, capital, and violence that create the "post-human landscapes" she describes so lushly.

(And, man, we could barely make it through a page or two before putting it down to note the authors' classist, colonialist perspective. At first, it seemed as if she was just, you know, from the other side of the Atlantic, and wasn't being careful with how she, say, spoke of native peoples in the Americas, or the imagery she used while describing poorer people. But there was a chapter that felt like …

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