Sable Island lies off Canada’s Nova Scotian coast. A shape-shifting ghost of an island, it is in fact more a sandbar, adrift in the Atlantic, wandering to the east or west with the storms that so frequently batter it – but somehow never tipping over the nearby Continental Shelf. The bane of sailors for many generations, it declines to stay exactly where it is on the sea charts, and is so low that it can often not be seen until an unfortunate ship is almost in its clutches. As a result, its beaches have been littered over the years by hundreds of shipwrecks. These have attracted both the notorious “wreckers,” who scavenged for whatever they could “salvage,” and were suspected of occasionally doing away with any witnesses who had the temerity to survive, and the employees of the Humane Establishment, set up for the rescue of shipwreck victims. Anchored roughly by tough vegetation, surprisingly supplied with fresh water in the middle of salt, inhabited by hardy wild horses descended from Acadian ponies left on the island in 1756, Sable is an amazing place, and the authors have done it justice in this engaging and often lyrical book.

Presents the story of Sable Island, an island adrift in the North Atlantic, tracing its history and topology from its probable origins in glacial times to its fate at the mercy of the continental shelf and North Atlantic currents. Reprint. 17,500 first printing.

Sable Island lies off Canada’s Nova Scotian coast. A shape-shifting ghost of an island, it is in fact more a sandbar, adrift in the Atlantic, wandering to the east or west with the storms that so frequently batter it – but somehow never tipping over the nearby Continental Shelf. The bane of sailors for many generations, it declines to stay exactly where it is on the sea charts, and is so low that it can often not be seen until an unfortunate ship is almost in its clutches. As a result, its beaches have been littered over the years by hundreds of shipwrecks. These have attracted both the notorious “wreckers,” who scavenged for whatever they could “salvage,” and were suspected of occasionally doing away with any witnesses who had the temerity to survive, and the employees of the Humane Establishment, set up for the rescue of shipwreck victims. Anchored roughly by tough vegetation, surprisingly supplied with fresh water in the middle of salt, inhabited by hardy wild horses descended from Acadian ponies left on the island in 1756, Sable is an amazing place, and the authors have done it justice in this engaging and often lyrical book.

From the fiords of northern Labrador to the icefields of western Greenland, from the outports of Newfoundland to the tiny fishing villages of Iceland and the Faroe Isles, best-selling author and lifelong sailor Myron Arms chronicles the experience of two-and-a-half decades of voyaging into some of the most remote destinations on Earth.Presented as a series of sixteen personal essays, True North is at once a tale of white-knuckled adventure, a celebration of natural places, and a quest for contact with the planet we live on. Thought-provoking and environmentally savvy, True North expresses one man's fierce determination to encounter the natural world, to live deliberately within it, to strive to minimize one's footprint upon it, and to bear witness to it before it is altered irretrievably-before it is lost. Also by the author: Riddle by the Ice 9780385490931, Cathedral of the World9780385494762, Servants of the Fish9780942679298

Global warming, energy shortages, overpopulation — it's no wonder that as a society, we're in an apocalyptic mood. Out of an endless stream of gloomy prognoses for humanity's future, we have emerged with little inspiration and few concrete ideas for change. Our Way Out is the first time that our most urgent global challenges have been treated as aspects of a single, larger crisis — and the first to acknowledge that while crises reinforce each other, solutions enable each other. The transformation to sustainability is already happening, in many small ways, in many parts of the world. Our Way Out shows us how we can scale up these efforts to create meaningful and lasting change. This is not a book on climate change, energy, or any other single issue — it is the story of how within the solutions to the global crises we face, lie the seeds of something greater. It is a handbook for immense and exciting worldwide change. And, not least of all, it offers us robust hope that we can make things better.

The first book for general readers about the storied past of one of the world’s most fabled cities. Timbuktu — the name still evokes an exotic, faraway place, even though the city’s glory days are long gone. Unspooling its history and legends, resolving myth with reality, Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle have captured the splendour and decay of one of humankind’s treasures. Founded in the early 1100s by Tuareg nomads who called their camp “Tin Buktu,” it became, within two centuries, a wealthy metropolis and a nexus of the trans-Saharan trade. Salt from the deep Sahara, gold from Ghana, and money from slave markets made it rich. In part because of its wealth, Timbuktu also became a centre of Islamic learning and religion, boasting impressive schools and libraries that attracted scholars from Alexandria, Baghdad, Mecca, and Marrakech. The arts flourished, and Timbuktu gained near-mythic stature around the world, capturing the imagination of outsiders and ultimately attracting the attention of hostile sovereigns who sacked the city three times and plundered it half a dozen more. The ancient city was invaded by a Moroccan army in 1600, beginning its long decline; since then, it has been seized by Tuareg nomads and a variety of jihadists, in addition to enduring a terrible earthquake, several epidemics, and numerous famines. Perhaps no other city in the world has been as golden — and as deeply tarnished — as Timbuktu. Using sources dating deep into Timbuktu’s fabled past, alongside interviews with Tuareg nomads and city residents and officials today, de Villiers and Hirtle have produced a spectacular portrait that brings the city back to life.

Book is clean and tight. No writing in text. Like New

What is it about islands that make them ideal settings for ghost stories? Maybe it’s because an island is the perfect place to dispose of a body or bury treasure, or maybe there’s some truth to the lore than spirits cannot travel over water. Whatever the case, with over 3,000 coastal islands, Maine has more than its share of those that are haunted. The proposed book features twenty-one haunted islands off the coast of Maine. A partial list of hauntings includes the following: Outer Heron Island: Death, panic, and mysterious fog plague this island, which is home to a vengeful ghost guarding a lost grave and a legendary treasure linked to a sea cave embellished in strange hieroglyphics. Swan’s Island: A number of ghosts haunt Swan’s Island, but the most noteworthy is a spirit appearing as a young, disoriented girl who leads people to the cemetery in the village of Atlantic and then mysteriously disappears before anyone discovers her grave. Mount Desert Rock: The station at this remote rock in the ocean contains a demonic spirit that targets anyone who spends the night in one particular room, inducing petrifying dreams that reenact a tragedy that took place there. Roque Island: This private island, which contains a mile-long white sand beach, is inhabited by the ghosts of a 19th century patriarch, a maid, and a young boy known as Gus, who spent his life in a cage due to incurable madness. Sable Island: The graveyard of the Atlantic, with more 350 shipwrecks, Sable Island is haunted by the spirits of those who drowned there, those who were left to fend for themselves in a bloody penal colony, and two women, one who was murdered, and one whose lifeless body was desecrated to remove the ring she wore.

In the decades before the Revolution, Americans and Britons shared an imperial approach to helping those in need during times of disaster and hardship. They worked together on charitable ventures designed to strengthen the British empire, and ordinary men and women made donations for faraway members of the British community. Growing up in this world of connections, future activists from the British Isles, North America, and the West Indies developed expansive outlooks and transatlantic ties. The schism created by the Revolution fractured the community that nurtured this generation of philanthropists. In From Empire to Humanity, Amanda Moniz tells the story of a generation of American and British activists who transformed humanitarianism as they adjusted to being foreigners. American independence put an end to their common imperial humanitarianism, but not their friendships, their far-reaching visions, or their belief that philanthropy was a tool of statecraft. In the postwar years, these philanthropists, led by doctor-activists, collaborated on the anti-drowning cause, spread new medical charities, combatted the slave trade, reformed penal practices, and experimented with relieving needy strangers. The nature of their cooperation, however, had changed. No longer members of the same polity, they adopted a universal approach to their benevolence, working together for the good of humanity, rather than empire. Making the care of suffering strangers routine, these British and American activists laid the groundwork for later generations' global undertakings. From Empire to Humanity offers new perspectives on the history of philanthropy, as well as the Atlantic world and colonial and postcolonial history.

This book examines the 1583 voyage of Sir Humphrey Gilbert to North America. This was England's first attempt at colonization beyond the British Isles, yet it has not been subject to thorough scholarly analysis for more than 70 years. An exhaustive examination of the voyage reveals the complexity and preparedness of this and similar early modern colonizing expeditions. Prominent Elizabethans assisted Gilbert by researching and investing in his expedition: the Printing Revolution was critical to their plans, as Gilbert’s supporters traveled throughout England with promotional literature proving England’s claim to North America. Gilbert’s experts used maps and charts to publicize and navigate, while his pilots experimented with new navigating tools and practices. Though he failed to establish a settlement, Gilbert created a blueprint for later Stuart colonizers who achieved his vision of a British Empire in the Western Hemisphere. This book clarifies the role of cartography, natural science, and promotional literature in Elizabethan colonization and elucidates the preparation stages of early modern colonizing voyages.