Remote Islands!
April 4, 2011 3:21 PM Subscribe
Can you help me find any books on remote modern day colonies?
I've recently become very fascinated by remote places that are quite inhabited...places like Saint Helena, Tristan De Cunha and the Pitcairn Islands...even the Azores sort of matches up with what I find interesting.
I've had a longstanding interest in places that are considered 'territories' or 'colonies' in present day. But lately i've been stumbling across really remote modern day colonies and territories of old colonial powers. My current fascination is three-fold:
-First is just on a day to day level (what is it like living in places like this? How does society function in such small quarters? etc.)
-Second is just historical curiosity (Why were some of these places colonized to begin with? General historical development.)
-Third is how present day governments view and interact with these territories (the example with Saint Helena would be, i suppose, why on earth the British government would maintain services there...i would imagine them being remarkably expensive...)
I know this is scattershot and probably a remarkably 'big' question to pin down, but, I'm looking for nonfiction works that address what life is like in these pretty remote regions of the world and how it came to be that way. I'm looking for a bit more depth than a wikipedia article can broach. Magazine articles, in depth news analysis and blogs would all be acceptable in this little search. The right novel or nonfiction work might also be appropriate.
I've recently become very fascinated by remote places that are quite inhabited...places like Saint Helena, Tristan De Cunha and the Pitcairn Islands...even the Azores sort of matches up with what I find interesting.
I've had a longstanding interest in places that are considered 'territories' or 'colonies' in present day. But lately i've been stumbling across really remote modern day colonies and territories of old colonial powers. My current fascination is three-fold:
-First is just on a day to day level (what is it like living in places like this? How does society function in such small quarters? etc.)
-Second is just historical curiosity (Why were some of these places colonized to begin with? General historical development.)
-Third is how present day governments view and interact with these territories (the example with Saint Helena would be, i suppose, why on earth the British government would maintain services there...i would imagine them being remarkably expensive...)
I know this is scattershot and probably a remarkably 'big' question to pin down, but, I'm looking for nonfiction works that address what life is like in these pretty remote regions of the world and how it came to be that way. I'm looking for a bit more depth than a wikipedia article can broach. Magazine articles, in depth news analysis and blogs would all be acceptable in this little search. The right novel or nonfiction work might also be appropriate.
Best answer: I enjoyed Lost Paradise, about the sexual abuse scandal on Pitcairn Island.
posted by bq at 3:53 PM on April 4, 2011
posted by bq at 3:53 PM on April 4, 2011
I share your love of lonely, far-flung specks in the midst of vasty oceans. While it's fictional, I think you might very much enjoy Judith Schlansky's Atlas of Remote Islands.
posted by mumkin at 5:53 PM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by mumkin at 5:53 PM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]
Another one, though it falls somewhat outside of your criteria for present-dayness, is the excellent The Colony, about the leper colony on Molokai.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 5:55 PM on April 4, 2011
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 5:55 PM on April 4, 2011
The first thing I thought of was James Mitchener's Hawaii. He goes back a billion years and into the geological history and up to pretty close to the present. He is very readable, as only a bestseller with lots of long books can be.
posted by mearls at 8:15 PM on April 4, 2011
posted by mearls at 8:15 PM on April 4, 2011
Best answer: A book you definitely will want to read is Simon Winchester's Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire. What you wonder about is exactly what he writes about. It's a pretty fascinating book, and Winchester is a great writer.
posted by just_ducky at 11:15 PM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by just_ducky at 11:15 PM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]
Hey ivan, is Braving Home the travelogue you were thinking of? (Your description got me interested, so I went googling.) Seems like it might hit most if not all of the OP's themes from an interesting angle.
posted by sigmagalator at 1:10 AM on April 5, 2011
posted by sigmagalator at 1:10 AM on April 5, 2011
Whittier, Alaska is remote but not a colony.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:39 PM on April 12, 2011
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:39 PM on April 12, 2011
Ah, Whittier -- that's the place I was thinking of. Wish I could remember the book that talked about it...
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 2:13 PM on April 13, 2011
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 2:13 PM on April 13, 2011
Probably Braving Home, as mentioned above.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:03 AM on April 14, 2011
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:03 AM on April 14, 2011
Braving home is the one!
I am most impressed by how I somehow missed that somebody had figured out which book it was a week before I last commented in here. I am king of attention span these days...
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 3:54 PM on April 29, 2011
I am most impressed by how I somehow missed that somebody had figured out which book it was a week before I last commented in here. I am king of attention span these days...
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 3:54 PM on April 29, 2011
the surrounded-by-lava guy is interviewed on the NPR here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3022608
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 3:55 PM on April 29, 2011
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3022608
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 3:55 PM on April 29, 2011
also, more on colonialism and antarctica that I forgot to mention earlier (specifically, mostly South American colonialism manifesting in counterproductive ways).
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 3:59 PM on April 29, 2011
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 3:59 PM on April 29, 2011
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The Last Pink Bits, which covers Tristan da Cunha, Saint Helena, Falklands, and a few other of the remoter bits still colonies under the British Crown.
Spreading your focus a little wider, I would also recommend this blog about Antarctica
There's also a travelogue collection about remote, desolate places in the world that I wish I could remember -- a town in Alaska that's basically all in one big apartment building; a housing development in Hawaii cut off on all sides by lava flow (there's one squatter who lives like a king); etc.
In many cases (Falklands most notably) places are inhabited and subsidized so that some other power can't claim them, in addition to whatever extractive benefits there are in the areas in question. Most of Canada's northern territories fall under this category, as well as other Northern oddities like Svalbard.
Apparently I know far too much about some of this stuff?
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 3:47 PM on April 4, 2011 [2 favorites]