'A remarkable collection of wonders...Lavishly produced, cleverly curated and elegantly scripted, it takes us to some of the strangest places on Earth, and offers us a peep through the keyhole.' The Spectator The globe is littered with forgotten monuments, their beauty matched only by the secrets of their past. A glorious palace lies abandoned by a fallen dictator. A grand monument to communism sits forgotten atop a mountain. Two never-launched space shuttles slowly crumble, left to rot in the middle of the desert. Explore these and many more of the world's lost wonders in this atlas like no other. With remarkable stories, bespoke maps and stunning photography of fifty forsaken sites, The Atlas of Abandoned Places travels the world beneath the surface; the sites with stories to tell, the ones you won't find in any guidebook. Award-winning travel writer Oliver Smith is your guide on a long-lost path, shining a light on the places that the world forgot. Locations featured in the book include: Europe: Maunsell Forts, Aldwych Station, Paris Catacombs, La Petite Ceinture, Craco, Teufelsberg, Beelitz-Heilstätten, Red Star Train Graveyard, Pyramiden, Salpa Line, Buzludzha Monument, Pripyat, Wolf's Lair, Project Riese, Sarajevo Bobsleigh Track, Albanian Bunkers, Rummu Quarry The Americas & the Carribean: New Bedford Orpheum Theatre, City Hall Station, Bodie, The Boneyards of Western USA, Bannerman Castle, Palace of Sans Souci, Montserrat Exclusion Zone, Ciudad Perdida, Humberstone and Santa Laura, Uyuni Train Cemetery, Fordlândia The Middle East & the Caucasus: Kayaköy, Burj Al Babas, Varosha, Tskaltubo, Palaces of Saddam Asia: Ryugyong Hotel, Buran at Baikonur, Mo'ynoq Ship Graveyard, Aniva Lighthouse, Hô' Thuy Tiên Waterpark, Fukushima Red Zone, Hashima Oceania: Wittenoom, Wrecks of Homebush Bay, Port Arthur, MS World Discoverer, Second World Remains of Papua New Guinea Africa: Shipwrecks of the Skeleton Coast, Kolmanskop, Mobutu's Gbadolite, Mos Espa, São Martinho dos Tigres

Explore more than forty forsaken urban destinations around the world in a "highly entertaining read . . . for history buffs, mystery fanatics and travel junkies alike" (GoNomad). Cities are mortal, but the traces they leave behind tell a fascinating story. In Atlas of Lost Cities, an accomplished travel writer reveals the rise and fall of notable places, each pithy portrait illuminated by a vintage map that puts armchair explorers right in the scene. Wander with care through: Ancient and legendary places like Pompeii, Teotihuacá and Angkor Contemporary wonders like Centralia, a nearly abandoned Pennsylvania town consumed by unquenchable underground fire Eerie planned communities like Nova Citas de Kilamba in Angola, where housing, schools, and stores were built for 500,000 people who never came Epecuen, a tourist town in Argentina that was swallowed by water With each map are fantastical illustrations that help the reader envision these hubs as they were in their prime. A perfect gift for the traveler who believes he or she has seen it all.

Series statement from publisher's website.

"Haunting photographs" - The Wall Street Journal. "Henk van Rensbergen is a hero for urban explorers around the world" - Flanders Today. "As an airline pilot, Belgian-born Henk Van Rensbergen was used to travelling the world. But he found a great way to supersize that passion: hunting for the most wonderful, secret, haunting abandoned places" - CNN. While his crew is resting at the pool, pilot and photographer Henk van Rensbergen explores deserted city palaces, overgrown factories or desolate areas of nature, finding beauty in the decay. This engaging book of photographs, a revised edition with new material, lets us wander through abandoned places, including Abkhazia, a break-away region bordering Georgia and Russia and the newest must-visit for every urban explorer. AUTHOR: Henk Van Rensbergen is the pilot of a Boeing 787 and a pioneering Urban Explorer. For more than 25 years, he has been capturing the most beautiful pictures of desolate and forgotten places. His Abandoned Places picture books (1, 2, 3 and The Photographer's Selection) have been highly successful. SELLING POINTS: * A new selection of the best images from Henk van Rensbergen, an urban explorer pioneer, in a handy format * This revised and expanded edition of his bestselling photo book of unusual places is packed with fascinating new images, including over 50% new material 120 colour, 50 b/w images

Atlas of Improbable Places shows the modern world from surprising new vantage points that will inspire urban explorers and armchair travellers alike to consider a new way of understanding the world we live in.

Stenciled on many of the deactivated facilities at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the evocative phrase “abandoned in place” indicates the structures that have been deserted. Some structures, too solid for any known method of demolition, stand empty and unused in the wake of the early period of US space exploration. Now Roland Miller’s color photographs document the NASA, Air Force, and Army facilities across the nation that once played a crucial role in the space race. Rapidly succumbing to the elements and demolition, most of the blockhouses, launch towers, tunnels, test stands, and control rooms featured in Abandoned in Place are located at secure military or NASA facilities with little or no public access. Some have been repurposed, but over half of the facilities photographed no longer exist. The haunting images collected here impart artistic insight while preserving an important period in history.

Lit Hub's Most Anticipated of 2021 A beautiful and engaging guide to global warming’s impacts around the world “The direction in which our planet is headed isn't a good one, and most of us don’t know how to change it. The bad news is that we will experience great loss. The good news is that we already have what we need to build a better future.” —from the introduction Our planet is in peril. Seas are rising, oceans are acidifying, ice is melting, coasts are flooding, species are dying, and communities are faltering. Despite these dire circumstances, most of us don’t have a clear sense of how the interconnected crises in our ocean are affecting the climate system, food webs, coastal cities, and biodiversity, and which solutions can help us co-create a better future. Through a rich combination of place-based storytelling, clear explanations of climate science and policy, and beautifully rendered maps that use a unique ink-on-dried-seaweed technique, The Atlas of Disappearing Places depicts twenty locations across the globe, from Shanghai and Antarctica to Houston and the Cook Islands. The authors describe four climate change impacts—changing chemistry, warming waters, strengthening storms, and rising seas—using the metaphor of the ocean as a body to draw parallels between natural systems and human systems. Each chapter paints a portrait of an existential threat in a particular place, detailing what will be lost if we do not take bold action now. Weaving together contemporary stories and speculative “future histories” for each place, this work considers both the serious consequences if we continue to pursue business as usual, and what we can do—from government policies to grassroots activism—to write a different, more hopeful story. A beautiful work of art and an indispensable resource to learn more about the devastating consequences of the climate crisis—as well as possibilities for individual and collective action—The Atlas of Disappearing Places will engage and inspire readers on the most pressing issue of our time. Locations include: Houston, Texas Shanghai, China Hamburg, Germany San Juan, Puerto Rico New York City, New York Pisco, Peru Kisite, Kenya Kure Atoll, Hawaii Camden, Maine The Cook Islands San Francisco, California Norfolk, Virginia Bến Tre, Vietnam Ise, Japan Gravesend, United Kingdom

Originally intended as an examination of the rise and fall of the state hospital system, Matthew Christopher's Abandoned America rapidly grew to encompass derelict factories and industrial sites, schools, churches, power plants, hospitals, prisons, military installations, hotels, resorts, homes, and more.

A beautiful, lyrical exploration of the places where nature is flourishing in our absence "[Flyn] captures the dread, sadness, and wonder of beholding the results of humanity's destructive impulse, and she arrives at a new appreciation of life, 'all the stranger and more valuable for its resilence.'" --The New Yorker Some of the only truly feral cattle in the world wander a long-abandoned island off the northernmost tip of Scotland. A variety of wildlife not seen in many lifetimes has rebounded on the irradiated grounds of Chernobyl. A lush forest supports thousands of species that are extinct or endangered everywhere else on earth in the Korean peninsula's narrow DMZ. Cal Flyn, an investigative journalist, exceptional nature writer, and promising new literary voice visits the eeriest and most desolate places on Earth that due to war, disaster, disease, or economic decay, have been abandoned by humans. What she finds every time is an "island" of teeming new life: nature has rushed in to fill the void faster and more thoroughly than even the most hopeful projections of scientists. Islands of Abandonment is a tour through these new ecosystems, in all their glory, as sites of unexpected environmental significance, where the natural world has reasserted its wild power and promise. And while it doesn't let us off the hook for addressing environmental degradation and climate change, it is a case that hope is far from lost, and it is ultimately a story of redemption: the most polluted spots on Earth can be rehabilitated through ecological processes and, in fact, they already are.