Description
Book Synopsis'An illuminating glimpse of the chain reactions of human and physical geography.' Financial Times 'A truly original adventure into new ways of exploring what we mean by a sense of place.' Simon Jenkins 'A fascinating exploration of the lesser-known and more subtle borders across the earth and the surprising ways in which they shape our lives.' i news Our world has innumerable boundaries, ranging from the obvious - like an ocean - to subtle differences in language or climate. Most of us cross invisible lines all the time, but don't stop to consider them. In Invisible Lines, geographer Maxim Samson presents 30 such unseen boundaries, intriguing and unexpected examples of the myriad ways in which we collectively engage with and experience the world. From football fans in Buenos Aires to air quality in China, Paris' banlieues to sub-Saharan Africa's Malaria Belt, the existence - or perceived existence - of dividing lines has manifold implications for people, wildlife, and places. Fully illustrated with maps of each location, Invisible Lines reveals the extraordinary ways in which we try to render the planet more liveable and legible; a compelling guide to seeing and understanding our world in all its consistency - and all its messiness, too.
Trade ReviewAn illuminating glimpse of the chain reactions of human and physical geography * Financial Times *
A chance to see the world anew through the eyes of a wonderfully curious new writer * Observer *
A fascinating book ... a truly original adventure into new ways of exploring what we mean by a sense of place -- Simon Jenkins, author of The Celts and A Short History of England
A fascinating exploration of the lesser-known and more subtle borders across the earth and the surprising ways in which they shape our lives * i news *
Endlessly interesting * The Spectator *
Invisible Lines is a fascinating, detailed exploration of the hidden boundaries that carve up the world ... it is a pleasure to accompany Samson to the Malaria Belt, inside eruvim (markers of a single domestic space within which fewer Sabbath regulations apply), or along the border of Portugal to discover why vultures prefer not to cross it. * Telegraph *
Old worlds enhanced, new worlds exposed and challenged ... a wise and thought-provoking series of raids across borders we thought we knew and others made visible to us, by Maxim Samson's forensic eye, for the first time -- Iain Sinclair, author of The Gold Machine and The Last London
Utterly engrossing! Samson's literary atlas of the world's unseen boundaries and how they've shaped our lives demands to be read -- Professor Lewis Dartnell, author of Origins: How the Earth Shaped Human History
[An] intricately detailed explanation of how each invisible line came to be, as well as what it can tell us about the world and our place within it...a fascinating read * Geographical Magazine, Book of the Month *
The world is a mesh of lines. We don't normally see them, and so we blunder on, unaware of where we really are and missing out on so much. Samson's iconoclastic new geography will make the scales fall from your eyes. A tremendous and important read -- Charles Foster, author of Cry of the Wild
A journey to the unmarked and unseen borders that shape our world ... a fascinating, extraordinary and insightful exploration of the many boundaries that define us -- Alastair Bonnett, author of The Age of Islands and Off the Map
This absorbing book is an accessible and wide-ranging read, built upon erudition, curiosity and careful compilation. It reveals and reflects upon many types of divisions between places - stretching from the Antarctic to the Urals, and from the turfs of passionate soccer fans in Buenos Aires to linguisitic divisions in Brittany, to name but a few -- Cliff Hague OBE, Emeritus Professor of Planning and Spatial Development at Heriot-Watt University
