St Kilda and the Wider World


Book Description

Forty miles out into the Atlantic from the western isles of Scotland lies the archipelago of St Kilda. Home to human populations for more than 4000 years, the islands inhabitants were evacuated from the main island in 1930 leaving it as a haven for wildlife, a tourist destination and workplace for those studying and monitoring the islands ecology and its radar station built in the 1950s. Many of those writing about St Kilda have emphasised the remoteness and insularity of its environment, describing its population as having endured a wretched and isolated existence marooned on an archipelago miles from civilisation. In this book Andrew Fleming challenges such interpretations. His history of the islands reviews the archaeological evidence for the first inhabitants before 2000 BC, how they lived and survived, and how they became integrated into the wider world. Much of the book focuses on more recent times where documentary sources relay in great detail the lives of St Kildans over the past few centuries; how they farmed, administered justice, took on communal responsibilities, their religious, and other, beliefs, the impact of visitors to the islands, and how events outside of the islands had an impact on their lives. Described as a historical drama, this is an excellent story of a remote island community which has been mythologised by many commentators. Superb photographs do much of the work of description.




The Wide World Magazine


Book Description




St Kilda and the Wider World


Book Description

Forty miles out into the Atlantic from the western isles of Scotland lies the archipelago of St Kilda. Home to human populations for more than 4000 years, the islands inhabitants were evacuated from the main island in 1930 leaving it as a haven for wildlife, a tourist destination and workplace for those studying and monitoring the islands ecology and its radar station built in the 1950s. Many of those writing about St Kilda have emphasised the remoteness and insularity of its environment, describing its population as having endured a wretched and isolated existence marooned on an archipelago miles from civilisation. In this book Andrew Fleming challenges such interpretations. His history of the islands reviews the archaeological evidence for the first inhabitants before 2000 BC, how they lived and survived, and how they became integrated into the wider world. Much of the book focuses on more recent times where documentary sources relay in great detail the lives of St Kildans over the past few centuries; how they farmed, administered justice, took on communal responsibilities, their religious, and other, beliefs, the impact of visitors to the islands, and how events outside of the islands had an impact on their lives. Described as a historical drama, this is an excellent story of a remote island community which has been mythologised by many commentators. Superb photographs do much of the work of description.




St Kilda


Book Description

St Kilda is the most romantic and most romanticised group of islands in Europe. Soaring out of the North Atlantic Ocean like Atlantis come back to life, the islands have captured the imagination of the outside world for hundreds of years. Their inhabitants, Scottish Gaels who lived off the land, the sea and by birdcatching on high and precipitous cliffs, were long considered to be the Noble Savages of the British Isles, living in a state of natural grace. St Kilda: A People's History explores and portrays the life of the St Kildans from the Stone Age to 1930, when the remaining 36 islanderswere evacuated to the Scottish mainland. Bestselling author Roger Hutchinson digs deep into the archives to paint a vivid picture of the life and death, work and play of a small, proud and self-sufficient people in the first modern book to chart the history of the most remote islands in Britain.




The Truth About St. Kilda


Book Description

The Truth about St Kilda is a unique record of the isolated way of life on St Kilda in the early part of the twentieth century, based on seven handwritten notebooks written by the Rev. Donald Gillies, containing reminiscences of his childhood on the island of Hirta. It provides a first-hand account of the living conditions, social structure and economy of the community in the early 1900s, before the evacuation of the remaining residents in 1930. The memoirs describe in some detail the St Kildans' way of life, including religious life and the islanders' diet. The puritanical form of religion practised on St Kilda has often been interpreted by outsiders as austere and draconian, but Gillies' account of the islanders' religious practices makes clear the important role that these had in reinforcing the spiritual stamina of the community. This book is a lasting tribute to the adaptability and courage of a small Gaelic-speaking society which endured through two millennia on a remote cluster of islands, until its way of life could no longer be sustained.




Coastal World Heritage Sites


Book Description

This book presents the natural, environmental and scenic richness of the world’s coastal and marine areas classified by UNESCO as “Natural World Heritage Sites”. Representing well-preserved areas of exceptional significance to the planet and to humankind, they include a total of 49 marine sites, formed by reefs, atolls and gulfs, and 35 coastal sites in all oceans and all continents with exception of Antarctica. They are being protected and preserved from most degrading uses for future generations as an important legacy from the past. Exploring their richness, this book analyzes and explains these sites in a clear, understandable, scientific way, and is of interest to all who work in or care about the geosciences, environmental sciences and biosciences.




Land and People


Book Description

This volume is derived, in concept, from a conference held in honour of John Evans by the School of History and Archaeology and The Prehistoric Society at Cardiff University in March 2006. It brings together papers that address themes and landscapes on a variety of levels. They cover geographical, methodological and thematic areas that were of interest to, and had been studied by, John Evans. The volume is divided into five sections, which echo themes of importance in British prehistory. They include papers on aspects of environmental archaeology, experiments and philosophy; new research on the nature of woodland on the chalklands of southern England; coasts and islands; people, process and social order, and snails and shells - a strong part of John Evans' career. This volume presents a range of papers examining people's interaction with the landscape in all its forms. The papers provide a diverse but cohesive picture of how archaeological landscapes are viewed within current research frameworks and approaches, while also paying tribute to the innovative and inspirational work of one of the leading protagonists of environmental archaeology and the holistic approach to landscape interpretation.




Islands Beyond the Horizon


Book Description

Profiles twenty remote islands, detailing the history, the wildlife, and the plants of each and discussing the impact of mankind.




Intermedial Art Practices as Cultural Resilience


Book Description

This innovative collection of essays is focused on the idea of transmedialization: the ways that the traditional forms of the predominantly oral cultures of Scotland and Brittany (poetry, song and story) can be transformed by the use of hybrid forms and new digital technologies. The volume invites readers from a range of disciplines – music, art, literature, history, cultural memory studies, anthropology or media studies – to consider how an intermedial aesthetics of the edge can enable these distinctive cultures to thrive. The languages of both cultures are presently endangered and the essays seek to connect notions of language with a culture which can align its traditions with the concerns of the present day. The collection proceeds from a conceptual analysis of poetry film, peripheral vision and the concerns of peripheral communities to an examination of inventive practices in the film-poem, experimental video, film portrait, word-image, digitised music, sound-image and genre-contestant narratives. The collection also includes contributions from creative practitioners who utilize a range of hybrid forms to revitalize the traditional vernacular cultures of Scotland and Brittany. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, literature, film studies, media studies, music, cultural theory, and philosophy.




Forms of Dwelling


Book Description

The concept of a socially constructed space of human activity in areas of everyday actions, as initially proposed in the field of anthropology by Tim Ingold, has actually been much more applied in archaeology. In this wide-ranging collection of 13 papers, including a re-assessment by Ingold himself, contributors show why it has been so influential, with papers ranging from the study of Mesolithic to historic and contemporary archaeology, revisiting different research themes, such as Ingold’s own Lapland study, and the development of landscape archaeology. A series of case studies demonstrates the value and strength of the taskscape concept applied to a variety of contexts and scales across wide geographical and temporal situations. While exploring new frontiers, the papers contrast British, Nordic and Mediterranean archaeologies to showcase the study of material culture and landscape and conclude with an assessment of the concept of taskcape and its further developments.




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