Off the Map

by Alastair Bonnett

A tour of the world’s hidden geographies—from disappearing islands to forbidden deserts—and a stunning testament to how mysterious the world remains today

At a time when Google Maps Street View can take you on a virtual tour of Yosemite’s remotest trails and cell phones double as navigational systems, it’s hard to imagine there’s any uncharted ground left on the planet. In Unruly Places, Alastair Bonnett goes to some of the most unexpected, offbeat places in the world to reinspire our geographical imagination.

Bonnett’s remarkable tour includes moving villages, secret cities, no man’s lands, and floating islands. He explores places as disorienting as Sandy Island, an island included on maps until just two years ago despite the fact that it never existed. Or Sealand, an abandoned gun platform off the English coast that a British citizen claimed as his own sovereign nation, issuing passports and crowning his wife as a princess. Or Baarle, a patchwork of Dutch and Flemish enclaves where walking from the grocery store’s produce section to the meat counter can involve crossing national borders.

An intrepid guide down the road much less traveled, Bonnett reveals that the most extraordinary places on earth might be hidden in plain sight, just around the corner from your apartment or underfoot on a wooded path. Perfect for urban explorers, wilderness ramblers, and armchair travelers struck by wanderlust, Unruly Places will change the way you see the places you inhabit.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Geography, History, Science, Maps, Essays

320 pages, Paperback

First published July 8, 2014

About the author

Alastair Bonnett is a professor of social geography at Newcastle University. He is the author of several books, including What Is Geography?, How to Argue, Left in the Past, and The Idea of the West. He has also contributed to history and current affairs magazines on a wide variety of topics.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was about the importance of place, viewed through the lens of 46 geographical cusiosities. And fascinating it was too. In covering so many locations, we never go into any great depth, but it makes for an easy read.

Geographer he may be, but Bonnett must be an aspiring Oulipian. The fact that the subtitle mentions 'Invisible Cities' gives the game away from the start. The structure of the book and the feel of the individual chapters are indebted to Calvino's masterwork. It's as if Bonnett has taken places from that irreal world and dragged them into the real one. The chapter called 'North Sentinel Island' put me immediately in mind of Marcel Appenzzel's doomed quest to engage with the aboriginal Orang-Kubu in Perec's Life a User's Manual. Bonnett presents us with all manner of unlikely places. I knew about the kingdom of Sealand, founded on a concrete platform in the North Sea, and the city-ship, 'The World', built for the gratification of the hyper-wealthy. And if you don't know about Pripyat, one might wonder on which planet you're living. Many of the others were news to me - the newly-built but empty city of Kangbashi, the property portfolios comprising the 'gutterspace' between buildings, the villages of the utopian Anastasia movement in Russia, the ancient underground city of Derinkuyu that a chap discovered behind his wall when carrying out some home improvements...

Bonnett writes with great moral force across a range of cartographical issues. Among other issues, his survey takes in climate change, social exclusion, ethnic cleansing, the folly of war, mysoginy, plutocracy and the CIA's transnational skullduggery. It might sound preachy, but it's all incidental to explaining the existence of the strange places our author takes us to. In any case, what's wrong with a little righteous indignation?

Bonnett contends that a world without borders would be no fun. I see this contention, up to a point. The homogenisation that comes with globalisation makes for a blander world. And there's the excitement of 'crossing the border'. But then there are borders and borders. The barbed wire and concrete that prevented East Germans from travelling weren't much fun, nor is the border between EU and non-EU that the insular have imposed on the outward-looking, here in the UK.

[Mateicee · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Sterne

Ich habe mich lange nicht mehr so durch ein Buch durchgekämpft, es hat mich einfach zu vieles gestört.

- Das Buch ist sehr subjektiv geschrieben, der Autor kommentiert alles, egal ob es Sinn macht, ob es passend ist oder nicht. Generell fand ich den Schreibstil auch für mich nicht angenehm

- Es soll um seltsame Orte gehen, geheime Städte, verlorene Räume, wilde Plätze, vergessene Inseln. Da haben für mich Orte wie eine Verkehrsinsel oder ein Fuchsbau nichts zu suchen. Diese Orte sind nicht seltsam, geheim oder verloren

- Ich hätte mir zu den verschiedenen Orten gerne Bilder gewünscht, Satelitenaufnahmen, Kartenausschnitte irgendwas damit man ein Gefühl für den Ort bekommt

Für mich leider keine Weiterempfehlung. Sorry...

[jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

authentic topophilia can never be satisfied with a diet of sunny villages. the most fascinating places are often also the most disturbing, entrapping, and appalling. they are also often temporary. in ten years' time most of the places we will be exploring will look very different; many will not be there at all. but just as biophilia doesn't lessen because we know that nature is often horrible and that all life is transitory, genuine topophilia knows that our bond with place isn't about finding the geographical equivalent of kittens and puppies. this is a fierce love. it is a dark enchantment. it goes deep and demands our attention.

alastair bonnett's unruly places offers transportive and captivating glimpses into the world's "lost spaces, secret cities, and other inscrutable geographies." divided into eight sections: "lost spaces," "hidden geographies," "no man's lands," "dead cities," "spaces of exception," "enclaves and breakaway nations," "floating islands," and "ephemeral places," bonnett's compendium of geographical curiosities will allure wanderlusters and imaginarians alike.

bonnett takes us around the globe, visiting forty-seven locales of remarkable disparity: an island long believed to exist (that actually doesn't), a once great sea that's now nearly desert, turkish underground cities, a cemetery inhabited by the living, traffic islands, lands of shifting borders, cities abandoned after industrial disasters, cities left unfinished, freeports, secret prisons, intentional communities, illegal settlements, feral cities, a land forbidden to women (including female animals), pumice rafts, trash islands, man-made islands, floating communities, public sex spots, play spaces, and an airport parking lot, amongst many others.

bonnett, a professor of social geography, invites us to think about the nature and meaning of place, drawing our attention to the neglected, forgotten, unknown, and undesirable locations that dot our planet. we are led to consider what specifically it might be that makes place so important to our species (collectively and as individuals). while bonnett's vignettes are wonderfully intriguing and succinctly portrayed, unruly places shies away from the deeper philosophical explorations it could have so easily embarked upon. it is, nonetheless, an engrossing tour of some of the world's most enigmatic and curious locales.

yet while those who care about place have a lot to be troubled about, it would be a shame if this discussion was limited to nostalgic laments. as we have seen, the world is still full of unexpected places that have the power to delight, sometimes appall, but always intrigue. these unruly places provoke us and force us to think about the neglected but fundamental role of place in our lives. they challenge us to see ourselves for what we are: a place-making and place-loving species.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, and it will go right next to Atlas of Remote Islands on my geeky geography wishlist.

The author uncovers some obscure instances of secret/lost/unknown places, like floating pumice islands, towns not listed on maps in Russia, underground cities, and disappearing corners.

What about the music festival that happens in an ice cave in Norway? Sign me up.

[Althea Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book to pick up when you don't have the time (or attention span) to sit down and get engrossed in something lengthy. It feels almost like a compilation of a column from a magazine - a couple of pages devoted to each entry.

The theme is interesting places around the world. The focus is on the interstitial - things that are caught in the margins, between one thing and the other, not one thing or the other, overlooked, decaying, forgotten. Like many others, I find such things fascinating, so I picked up this book both as a potential guidebook and to hear the author's take on such places.

At a few junctures, the authors pontificating can get slightly pompous, in the manner of an academic lecture. Overall, however, his ideas about the psychology of topography: our conception of space, place, and borders (and how those change over time, are affected by politics, etc.), are quite fascinating.

The chosen places, and the factual information on each of them, was also interesting. I did know about a decent percentage of the places mentioned, but I still kept raising my head up from the book to say to whoever was around: "Hey! Did you know...?"

Each item that the author has included an essay on is accompanied by its longitude and latitude... however, what would've really brought this book up to 5 stars is if the author had teamed up with a National Geographic-quality photographer in order to illustrate these locations. For nearly every item, I found myself longing to see it as described - not just to peer at it via Google Earth. A coffee-table edition, with photos, would be a great project!

An advance copy of this book was provided by NetGalley. Thanks so much for the opportunity to read... As always, my opinions are my own.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apart from some obscure bits of the Amazon rainforest and Indonesian jungles we think that there can be no undiscovered parts of the world; can there? Surely, we must have discovered everything on Google Earth by now. Off The Map sets about putting that record straight. In this book, Bonnett helps us discover secret places, unexpected islands, slivers of a metropolis and hidden villages. Russia seems to have more than its fair share of secret and abandoned cities. There is Zheleznogorsk, a military town that never existed on any map and still retains some of its secrecy today. Probably the most infamous is Pripyat, abandoned days after the nuclear explosion at Chenobyl, it is slowly being reclaimed by nature; the amount of radiation means that the area will not be safe for humans to reoccupy for at least 900 years. Give or take…

Bonnett tells us about disputed borders that mean that the people still living there are unattached to any nation, a man in New York who bought the tiny strips of land alongside tower blocks for a few dollars each. There is Sealand, a fortress built in World War Two and now a self-declared principality in the North Sea. Other islands exist in out oceans too, some that are on maps that have never been there, others made from rubbish that has collected together and occasionally floating rocks; or pumice as it is better known, the residue from underwater volcanoes. There is also a huge vessel called the World, collectively owned by the residents, it ploughs the seas keeping all the riff-raff away. He mentions the abandoned villages of England from the second world war, including one just down the road from me; Arne.

It is a fascinating book, full of weird and wonderful trivia about places that you really wouldn’t want to visit on your holidays. It is also an exploration of what makes a landscape and the things we draw from it. Worth reading for anyone who is fascinated by those places that just don’t fit the map. 3.5 stars

[Nancy Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

In "Unruly Places," Alastair Bonnett has written neither a tour guide nor a history book. Instead, it's a sort of mash-up of history, philosophy and sociology applied to the geography of little-known places on the earth. In separate chapters, the author examines places as diverse as islands that appear only on maps, underground colonies, deserted cities, male-only religious territories, and even urban "gutterspace," or slivers of land between buildings.

Facts are my thing. Theory not so much. I found some parts of the book interesting and some of it too conceptual to capture my interest. I knew a little bit about some of the places the author examines -- for example, underground cities inhabited by early Christians -- and I enjoyed learning more about them. But the author's philosophizing often made no sense to me. Of living underground, he says on one page that "there is something down there; something we are drawn to," but just a few pages later says "only the truly fearful choose to live under the ground." Which is it? Are we drawn to it? Or forced underground?

The chapters are brief, some only three or four pages, so you can take this book a little at a time, if you like. It's probably better to read it that way, as the connecting tissue of the book is fairly thin. But if you like to examine the mundane in a poetic way, this might be the book for you. For example, here is how the author starts his chapter on "Enclaves and Breakaway Nations": "I don't have an easy relationship with borders. They frighten and unnerve me. Searched, prodded, delayed; again and again, for the temerity of crossing a few feet of land. They are bureaucratic fault lines, imperious and unfriendly." Not really my thoughts as I cross a border, but then again, I'm not a poet or philosopher.

[Daren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, it took me longer to shelve the countries than it will to review...
This was a great drop-in-drop-out book - the way I used it was for a half hour here and a half hour there.
There are forty seven short stories in this book, divided into eight themes sections. They average about six pages each, so very manageable.

Of the forty seven stories, there were probably 10 great stories, another fifteen good ones, and at the other end, probably 10 that were terrible. That leaves a dozen that were readable without being much more. On that basis it is more hit than miss, and tracks around three stars for me.

My expectations going in were quirks in geography, hidden corners, border anomalies and probably some off-the-grid type military or political enclaves. These were present, and probably formed the more enjoyable part of my reading, along with a few other unusual chapters. The chapters that didn't really resonate with me were the more ephemeral or theoretical ones - where geography and history slip into sociology and psychology. This is of course purely personal preference, but that's the way it fell to me. I think fewer locations, better selected and in a little more depth would have suited me.

Particular highlights, off the top of my head - the underground cities of Cappadocia, North Sentinal Island, the land border section (India/Bangladesh; Sudan/Egypt; El Salvador/Honduras; and some of the floating islands and enclaves.

Worth a read, but probably I would struggle to sit down and read it cover to cover.

[Thomas Cook · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed in this book. I wanted to like it, and perhaps I am too much of a geographic stickler, but the read did not live up to the premise of the title. The author did not travel to many of the places listed, and there are too many places listed. Nor does the collection hang together. The book works well as a sampling of interesting places, and you can open it up anywhere and have a fun read; leave it in the restroom.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I wasn't very impressed with the academese and more than a little disappointed that he hadn't actually visited many of the places he writes about.

But as I progressed through the book I found myself enjoying it and appreciating his opinion.

He describes himself as a lapsed libertarian and former situationist(no me neither? ) so it's no surprise he's a tad on the eccentric side. Eccentric and interesting. A nice combination.

I did have a few small quibbles.

I'd have preferred a lot more attention to the overlap between geography and architecture. They do and quite a lot.
I'm guessing here, but I have a feeling there is a degree of animosity between the geography and architecture worlds and they try to ignore each other.

Another quibble was the sparsity of maps.Considering the title they are few and far between.

To conclude.
An informative, wide ranging and entertaining book. I learned a lot. He knows his subject.
I would read this author again for sure. I like his style.

8/10 4 stars. 

[Emma Sea · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book a hell of a lot more than I did. I found it all a little too . . . ordinary. The places (or non-places) were well described, but the words lacked that magic sense of evocativeness, and the "what they tell us about the world" just . . . missed, somehow? Maybe it's because it's formatted as a series of almost encyclopedic entries, each about one specific place. There's no overall thematic structure or narrative to tie them together. Or maybe it's because these aren't, in general, places that Bonnett has a link to, that he's visited. He's pulled the information for entries from other books, because they're interesting on the surface. There's little personal connection to Bonnett in here, outside of a few succinctly-stated anecdotes. But place is mediated through human experience, and without that spark of connectedness everything was just a little hollow and flat.

This is nothing like a gorgeous as any of Mary Oliver's writing about place, or Robert MacFarlane's.

I feel guilty for giving it a 2, but for me it was only OK.

[Fern Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like ideas and theories around space and place as it’s fascinating how much we think is solid and tangible isn’t. Therefore when this book tumbled out my months supply of books my librarian picked out for me I sat down to read it at once.

Bonnet explores around 60 places that are not strictly speaking ‘on the map’, widely acknowledged as places or little is known as them. These range from the obvious such as Chernobyl, hidden cities in Russia, floating masses of rubbish to more obscure such as underground cities, a ship called the World and an island off Australia that never was but until recently was believed to exist as it featured on maps.

In many ways I really liked this book however what stopped me giving it more stars is it lacked any real depth. I ended up with more questions and felt like I read 60 plus blurbs for other books and research. However a good starting block on what is a captivating subject.

[Jill H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you suffer from "topophilia"? I think we all do as it is defined as "love of place". It is the fabric of our lives, a place to call home, memory, and identity. This book weaves topophilia into the author's search for those unusual places in the world that help define it and why, in most cases, people continue to inhabit these spaces. A social geographer, he takes us to areas that we didn't even know existed and to make it easier, he divides his chapters into such topics as lost spaces, no man's lands, dead cities, spaces of exception, and much more. Some are right under our feet such as the underground labyrinth beneath Minneapolis/St. Paul, USA. Some which were thought to exist into modern times and appear on most maps, such as Sandy Island near Australia, don't really exist at all. Or the Aral Sea in Central Asia which has morphed into the Aral Desert where the inhabitants eagerly await the return of the "blue water" which will probably never happen.

The author slows things down a bit in some chapters by his discussions about global warming......although an important and disturbing condition that is changing the world in which we live, he gets a bit repetitive. Otherwise, this is an armchair traveler's paradise and will amaze you that these "unruly spaces" actually exist.

[Dina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Grandísima decepción. Es un libro de curiosidades, pero un libro mal escrito. Lo leer por leer. Vas viendo lugares y te vas diciendo a ti misma, vaya que bien, que curioso, pero en ningún momento tienes ganas de saber más ni de ver cual es la siguiente historia.
Muy bonito, pero muy mediocre.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

As stated in the publisher marketing "this is not a book you need to read cover to cover" and I have not though I would like to go back at some point and do so because it is clear the author has a particular flow to these essays in mind. Instead, I have been like a chicken pecking here and there in the grass when just steps away is a feeding trough neatly laid out. Ad though the reader can amass a wonderful collection of conversational trivia from this marvelous essay collection, it is far more than cocktail party fodder. It is a collection with intellect and scope, a geo-social treatise on place and landscape, on belonging and on the mystery of our ever-changing planet. Bonnett examines the relationship between place and the human psyche and give intriguing examples of both natural and unnatural geological change. More than mere geographical observation and stopping short of environmental activism, the author seeks to engage our "geological imagination". Bonnett strings together stories of earth's transitional landscapes, the paradox of border regions and no man's lands, the rapid appearance and disappearance of islands, inland seas, and communities. Fascinating and impressively presented.

[Nicky · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was something of an impulsive purchase, and it turned out to be lighter reading than I expected. Each section is very short, sometimes just three pages long, and it leaves you wondering why he included such-and-such a place if there was so little to say about it. After all, the point of this book is to highlight interesting stuff about places that don’t exist (that either never have, or no longer do, or can’t officially, or…), so surely it’s worth spending some time on each one. Instead, a lot of the sections come across as perfunctory, included more out of a sense that they fit the theme than because they’re interesting.

There are some interesting facts in here, and I do enjoy the way Bonnett cross-references with fiction — when he talks about St Petersburg/Leningrad, he mentions China Miéville’s The City & The City, for example. But it was too much of a grab bag of not-always-interesting facts, and sometimes it also came across as rather preachy. Not that I disagree with Bonnett on many of these things, but still, the tone is offputting.

Originally posted here.

[Sacha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Die seltsamsten Orte der Welt von Alastair Bonnett

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4*)

Zu Beginn fand ich das Buch eher langweilig und etwas fad. Als ich aber bemerkt hatte, dass der Titel etwas falsch übersetzt wurde und der Autor in eine ganz andere Richtung wollte, war ich komplett fasziniert.

Es geht darum über Orte nachzudenken, Orte kennenzulernen, von denen man noch nie gehört hat und sich die Frage zu stellen, wo und wie man leben möchte und welche Alternativen es gibt.

Jedes Kapitel erzählt von einem spezifischen Ort und dessen Umgebung. Sei es Sandy Island, die Aral-Wüste der Nordfriedhof von Manila oder Prypjat bei Tschernobyl, so sind es alles sehr spezielle Geschichten von denen man die eine oder andere kennt aber die meisten defintiv unbekannt sind (jedenfalls für mich). Das Buch regt dazu an, einige Geschichten weiter nachzulesen oder Bilder zu suchen und erweitert den Horizont aus meiner Sicht mit jedem neuen Kapitel.

Für Fans der allgemeinen Bildung und Menschen die alle möglichen Interessen haben, ein Muss! 😁👍🏻

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

When you think of the world today you always assume that we have discovered everything, each piece of land is owned and there aren’t any unknowns left for us to discover. What this book shows us is that those thoughts are wrong, whether it is a strip of land between buildings, floating pumice islands, no-mans land or an abandoned gun platform out in the sea, there are still many remarkable places for us to discover and explore.

I found the psychology of what a place means to us the most interesting part of this book, Bonnett would start talking about a type of place, strips of unused land between building in cities for example, I would instantly think you can’t include that in the list but each time he convinced me that it deserved to be included. Once you start using you imagination these sorts of places really come alive with potential, imagine what you could witness happening around you whilst the world moves on….hmmm starting to sound like a peeping tom now. My favourite weird place in the book was a sandy island that had always been included on maps but when somebody went looking for it there was nothing there, google maps did the only logical thing and did an awful photoshop jobbie of removing the island from existence, look it up, hilarious.

There was only one location included that I had heard of before, Sealand, an incredible story of a breakaway English nation living on an abandoned platform at see, the self proclaimed king stood his ground against English law and foreign invaders. Each time I read of Sealand in a book I always end going off on a google adventure reading up on the tiny nation.

I have to admit that I found this book rather frustrating, it is jammed packed with so many interesting and strange places but Bonnett seems to get bored quickly and rushes onto the next location, I would have loved some photos, or interviews of the locals, or just more info about the place to answer all the many questions I had, for a while I did spend time on google but gave up as I was spending more time looking at the screen and not at the book.

I did enjoy the book but it would have been far better with less places included and more time spent on those that did make the cut.

Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2021...

[Jules · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this a lot, I really did, it's a curious exploration of hidden cities like mystery islands being uncovered and swallowed by the rising sea level, cemetery villages within a city, underground cities built to escape religious persecution and forgotten by time, or artificially created floating ice villages. However it felt really uneven in the quality of the pieces, the more interesting ones weren't explored thoroughly enough, and there's a good dose of authorial self insertion I thought really dragged the pieces down.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting book about maps and places and its an quirky book too but an easy read though.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book of brief chapters dealing with out-of-the-way, forgotten, or anomalous (in one way or another) patches of land (or virtual land - as the case may be - since some "lands" that are discussed are man-made/temporary/boats. The author's prose is definitely a pleasure to read, with many felicitous turns of phrase. Also, the text is thought-provoking - for example, the author suggests that without borders, the world would be less fun, because it's the forbidden quality of finding places that are outside borders, or exist in a no-man's-land of one sort or another - that makes them exciting and interesting. He is probably right. The world is entirely spoken for it seems - mapped out, governed, under the authority of one state or another. We are attracted to anomalies such as the ones described in the book precisely because they're off the grid of states - we wonder how they can exist without the protection of larger states and so forth. Anyone who is interested in finding out about these remnants or left-over swatches of territory that seemingly are not accounted for, will find the book both enlightening & entertaining.

So here are some quotes:

From the Introduction:

"Moving through landscapes that once meant something, perhaps an awful lot, but have been reduced to places of transit where everything is temporary and everyone is just passing through gave me a sense of unease and a hunger for places that matter." He was talking about his home town near London - which was bland/generic. How that experience of growing up in what sounds like a cookie-cutter suburb, like many others, inspired him to seek out places that were unique, and definitely had a sense of history or permanence. Well, we can say the same thing here - development is often rushed, so that developers can maximize profits quickly. The result can be acres of buildings that look very much alike - that don't look particularly like "New York" or "Brooklyn." Of course the situation is even more extreme in some suburbs where the houses really do like endless repetitions of prototypes - ranch, colonial, ranch, high-ranch, bungalow, colonial etc. When you add in the increasing prevalence of chain stores rather than mom-'n'-pops, if you are in one suburb, you might as well be in any other - there is almost nothing that makes one suburb that different or unique. Perhaps parks, views, the beach, mountains - things that cannot be "mass-produced" and that are in fact different wherever you go - these definitively distinguish one place from another.

"When human fulfillment is measured out in air miles and when even geographers subscribe to the idea, as expressed by Professor William J. Mitchell of MIT, that 'communities increasingly find their common ground in cyberspace rather than terra firma,' wanting to think about place can seem a little perverse." "Off the Map" was published in 2015 - as the transition to an online existence - so to speak - was picking up. It's all the more so now, with folks more or less addicted to screens of one sort or another - and finding within cyberspace everything they need, or so they think. I think people if given a choice will gravitate to that which is more convenient - thus, because the smart phone offers convenience above all, it doesn't really matter where a person happens to be at any given moment, they can virtually "be" with their circle of friends/"on-line community" all the time. There's no need to fixate on place, or how and why one place is better than the next, as long as there is Wi-Fi (well, that's oversimplifying things, but it seems that in a cookie-cutter world, where Ikea supplies the furniture, Starbucks the coffee, and Amazon everything else - it hardly matters if one is interacting with folks on your smart phone in Brooklyn or Belgium - there are probably just as cool parks in Belgium as in Brooklyn and so forth, although knowing French in Belgium would be helpful).

From Chapter: "Lost Spaces: Leningrad"

"In "The City and the City," China Mieville's allegory of antagonistic cities that literally co-habit the same space, the inhabitants stay culturally pure by 'unseeing' each other and the other place." Here the author is discussing the sequence of names of St. Petersburg: Originally, St. Petersburg, then Petrograd - a more Russian, less German-sounding name during WW1, then Leningrad in honor of the father of the USSR, and then back to St. Petersburg once the USSR was dissolved and communism was overturned. The new regime symbolically ignores the old - by renaming a place. Especially a place named in honor of a tsar (Peter the Great) - definitively breaking with the monarchic past. A new society is supposed to arise from the ashes of the old, man's energy and imagination is supposed to be liberated and become even more creative and productive, without the constraints of class and the misery of poverty, income inequality etc. Unfortunately, except for about ten years immediately post-Revolution, the creativity and excitement turned into Stalinism and repression. Following a revolution and its cancellation, how do today's inhabitants deal with a prior era that has fallen into disfavor, that is, most of 20th C history - is it 'unseen' by them? Do they pretend that 70 years of Russian history 'never happened?' "Petersburg was an imperial new town built on the Baltic coast in the eighteenth century by Peter the Great and given a foreign, Dutch-sounding name, Sankt-Petersburgh." "It was here that 900 days of siege were endured during the second World War, when a starved people defended and then rebuilt their city from the rubble."

From Chapter: "Old Mecca"

"Turning complex, diverse places into shallow, simple ones creates a more culturally vulnerable population, an unrooted mass whose only linking thread lies in the ideology that is fed to them from above." "In the face of puritanical ideologies, whether political or religious, the past takes on a subversive and unruly quality." "Both [the destruction of Old Mecca and the ban on non-Muslims entering the city] are attempts to cleanse the city of historical complexity." "Ironically, before they seized the city [in 1803 and proceeded to destroy the visible associations with other, older, and less puritanical varieties of Islam], the Wahhabis [the Islamic faction to which the Saudi dynasty belong] themselves were deemed heterodox and banned from its holy places by the City's Sharif, or holy steward." "The iconoclasm inflicted on Mecca is providing the perfect environment for the growth of consumerism."

From Chapter: "New Moore"

"Rising sea levels are creating new shorelines at a rate that is outstripping governments' ability to respond."

From Chapter: "Zheleznogorsk"

"In 1996, [the residents of Zheleznogorsk, which was created by the Soviets for the production of nuclear weapons] ... voted to remain shut away from the world. ... closed places and secret cities fitted snugly into the paranoid mindset of Soviet communism but in a post-communist era there are other reasons why communities might decide to be cut off from the rest of us. It's not only about hanging on to secrets, it's about holding on to a lifestyle."

From Chapter: "Aghdam"

"For anyone over a certain age it is hard to believe that we utterly mistook something so bi, so solid, as the USSR. Even at a distance of almost a quarter of a century it is difficult to grasp that it was never a country at all so much as an unwieldy empire."


From Chapter: "Bountiful"

"Growing your own food and tending your own smallholding is hugely popular in Russia - it was estimated in 1999 that 71 per cent of the country's population already owned a plot and were cultivating it. In 2003, the same year that saw the foundling of Bountiful [pat of an eco-spiritual (Utopian) sect called the Anastasia Movement] the private Garden Plot Act allowed Russian citizens to claim free plots of land of between one and three hectares [~ 3-7 acres]."

From Chapter: "Ranch of Sprouts: Brotas Quilombo"

"Escape is not just about running away, it's about having somewhere to go, about setting down roots in a different kind of place. If free places cannot be sustained then escape becomes impossible and resistance slowly dies."

[Bandit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some destinations aren’t on the maps. Some are, but in no conventional way. They don’t follow rules, which makes them by definition unruly and this book is a compendium of such locations. My second read by the author and again a terrific adventure. Bonnett is a professor of social geology, meaning not only does he know his subject, but he also presents it in a superbly fascinating, intellectually challenging and stimulating way. Not only did he find dozens of positively bizarre singular places, but he writes about them in a way that makes you ponder the very nature of our connections to these places. Bonnett postulates quite accurately that were are place making place loving species and as such we find ourselves homemaking in outlandish locales, creating creature comforts where none are readily available and bedding down in some very strange places indeed. And all of these locations are given context too, so that they can be understood within the grand scheme of things, both sociopolitical and anthropological. In the modern world where countries make for such uneasy neighbors, Bonnet argues for the world of created (however ersatz and inadequate) territorial boundaries the way I’d argue for democracy…far from perfect but it’s the best available. There are places here that desperately strive for independence, while some are equally desperate to find somewhere to belong. Tentative alliances and allegiances based on ancient past or circumstantial present, but also some absolutely random geographical creations, this book spans it all from need to whimsy. And no matter how well read and well informed you are or how seasoned or an armchair traveler you might be, it’s sure to surprise you with a place or two that’ll boggle the mind, delight and bewilder. Bonnett is a serious writer, and even though I may prefer my nonfiction to be slightly more humorous, his writing easily surpasses my desire for light amusement by just being so engaging and smart. Idea upon idea, this book is a genuine fount of information and food for thought. It really is. My favorite thing about Bonnett’s books is the way he makes you think of the world as a wider and wilder place that presented by my standard Mercator projection map on the wall. It makes you consider the world around us with certain awe and that’s just…well, awesome. Great read, edifying, educational, enlightening and terrifically succinct for such a strikingly inspiring undertaking. Recommended.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beschreibung 
Spätestens seit Google Earth ist die Welt bis in den letzten Winkel erforscht und vermessen. Es gibt keine unbekannten Orte mehr, keine unberührten Eilande, nichts mehr zu entdecken - oder etwa doch?
Alastair Bonnett stellt in diesem Buch faszinierende und außergewöhnliche Orte vor, die unsere Vorstellungen von der Welt gehörig durcheinanderbringen. Sie tauchen auf und unter, wie die Inseln im Gangesdelta, verschwinden von Satellitenbildern, wie Sandy Island vor der australischen Küste, oder verstecken sich unter Gebüsch und Gestrüpp, das alle Spuren überwuchert, wie auf der britischen Halbinsel Arne. Unterhaltsam und leichtfüßig werden Orte wie Bir Tawil in Ostafrika beschrieben, die partout keine Nation haben will, oder Orte, die scheinbar zu zwei Nationalstaaten gleichzeitig gehören. Berichtet wird von versteckten Labyrinthen, unterirdischen, verlassenen oder überbauten Städten ebenso wie von ihrer historischen Entwicklung. Lehrreich, aber nicht belehrend führt Bonnett durch geographische Kuriositäten und zeigt, dass auch für den heutigen Menschen das Entdecken nie aufhört.

Kurzmeinung / Leseerlebnis 
Jedem Kapitel vorangestellt sind die geografischen Koordinaten des Ortes. Ich hätte mich gefreut wenn zusätzlich ein Kartenausschnitt abgebildet gewesen wäre. 
Von einigen der beschriebenen Orte hatte ich bereits gehört oder gelesen. Die meisten waren mir aber unbekannt und ich habe viel Interessantes dazu gelernt. Allerdings ließ der Autor sehr stark seine subjektive Meinung zu den Orten und Ereignissen einfließen. Ein wenig mehr Objektivität hätte ich mir für ein Sachbuch gewünscht. 

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 3 out of 5]

More 3.5.

This is a handy compendium of far away and very close (in mind, or spirit, if not geography) isolated, complex, and/or temporary places. Bonnett guides us from radiation-affected areas to bombed out cities, islands of ice or pumice to places where strangers aren't wanted in a lively manner, but at times I wish he had settled down for a longer and deeper spell of thinking about what this or that place means to its inhabitants and could mean to those only reading about it. The people who live in enclaves stuck inside other enclaves (or right alongside) fairly require more sustained treatment.

But that's not the book Bonnett chose to write, so for what he has written, I recommend this as something to help us see, partially, out of the corner of our eye, how other people have chosen or are forced to live. Where possible, Google Earth coordinates are provided.

[Beatriz · Rating 4 out of 5]

No sabía qué me iba a encontrar en este libro, la verdad. No sé porqué pensaba que una especie de guía de viajes a sitios súperraros para los que, yo qué sé, hay que conseguir un permiso especial o tener mogollón de pasta (y eso que Blackie Books te pone una pegatina bien amarilla diciéndote que Esto no es una guía de viajes, pero yo a mi ritmo).

Pues nada de eso. A ver, algunos sí se pueden visitar, pero esto no es una guía de viajes. Esto es un libro de filosofía. Más concretamente, de filosofía de lugares (una rama de la geografía que no sabía ni que existía).



Ha resultado una lectura muy interesante y bastante ligera para ser filosofía. Los capítulos son cortos y, joder, hay lugares en el mundo que alucina, vecina. Ciudades rusas súper secretas que cuando desapareció la URSS dijeron "fuck the world" y siguieron viviendo a su bola, ciudades fantasma en China en las que no vive nadie, países que no reconoce ni el Tato, ciudades donde la gente más pobre se ve obligada ha vivir en el cementerio... Algunos capítulos eran más bien reflexiones sobre qué significa tener esa clase de lugar en tu vida (o no) más que hablarnos de un lugar curioso, pero en general es un libro que te abre la mente y te enseña cosas sobre geografía que no te habías planteado (como la peña que compra aceras en Nueva York, wtf?). Ha sido una lectura muy enriquecedora.

Lo recomiendo un montón.

[Mycala · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sooo... this book. I dove into this book after reading The Sex Lives of Cannibals and found the first chapters fascinating. Underground explorations, islands that appear and disappear seemingly at will, urban mini-properties? Cool! I gobbled it all up. Abandoned towns due to asbestos mining or nuclear accidents? Sad but fascinating.

Then we got to the part about imaginary places of sorts and my interest ground to a halt. I kept trying, but I lost interest. I just couldn't bring myself to finish. I used to feel bad about putting books down, but the problem with forcing myself to read something that I no longer find interesting means that I stop reading entirely for a while. That's not fair to me. I know some people have a problem with those who give reviews of books they haven't completely read to the end. I don't care. If someone says they couldn't finish a book that says it all to me. There are too many other books on my "to-read" list and my life is already about half over, so I have more important things to do. :-) Two stars, because "it was ok" per the star rating. Also, because the first part of the book really was interesting.

Also, I think photos would have been a great addition to this. Perhaps that's part of my trouble -- as a lover of geography and maps, even just maps would have made my enjoyment more complete.

[DoctorM · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clever and fun and thoughtful account of places that are off the map--- what Bonnett calls "lost spaces". Bonnett tours geographies that are messy, forgotten, lost, fading, abandoned--- ghost mining towns, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, imaginary islands, once-and-former secret cities in Siberia, slivers of urban space unaccounted for on tax rolls and deeds ---to look at how a world of GPS and Google Earth still hasn't been reduced to cartographic fixity and at how humans respond to place and memory. From comedy--- the twin Dutch and Belgian towns that overlap one another like some China Mieville novel ---to tragedy (Indian enclaves within Bangladesh where the locals are trapped between bureaucratic mandates and pushed out of schools and hospitals; North Korean prison camps; asbestos mining towns in the Australian west), Bonnett lays out a series of small essays that are delightful and haunting and occasionally disturbing. Very much worth reading.

[JaumeMuntane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro fascinante y genial (en una impecable edición de Blackie Books) que nos ofrece un viaje por 48 lugares que no aparecen en los mapas. Una puerta abierta a la peculiaridad, la sorpresa, la fascinación y el descubrimiento de lugares únicos. Además, el autor no se limita a un simple listado de lugares sino que nos ofrece una explicación del origen de dichos lugares así como una siempre interesante reflexión sobre los mismos. Imprescindible.

[Mosco · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5* 7/10

48 (!) luoghi "strani", alcuni interessanti altri meno, quasi tutti sconosciuti e alcuni noti, raccontati, ognuno in poche pagine, da punti di vista diversi. Forse troppi, difficile ricordarli tutti. Forse troppo poche pagine ognuno?

Gradevole.

ParacadutI però non si può proprio sentire!

[MaluPav · Rating 5 out of 5]

Desde edificios sin acabar, ciudades contaminados por accidentes nucleares, islas que pertenecen a dos países," The World" el barco residencial,
"Isla Sandy" que es fantastma trazada por error, pueblo de UK donde se practica sexo al aire libre, "Nowhere" curioso festival Aragón. Cada uno con sus singularidad.
Noté en falta algunas imágenes, así que me acompañaba Google en la lectura.
Es muyyy muy interesante.