Cave: Nature and Culture

by Ralph Crane, Lisa Fletcher

Shortlisted for the Tratman Award 2015

To enter caves is to venture beyond the realm of the everyday. From huge vaulted caverns to impassable, water-filled passages; from the karst topography of Guilin in China to the lava tubes of Hawaii; from tiny remote pilgrimage sites to massive tourism enterprises, caves are places of mystery. Dark spaces that remain largely unexplored, caves are astonishing wonders of nature and habitats for exotic flora and fauna.

This book investigates the natural and cultural history of caves and considers the roles caves have played in the human imagination and experience of the natural world. It explores the long history of the human fascination with caves, across countries and continents, examining their dual role as spaces of both wonder and fear. It tells the tales of the adventurers who pioneered the science of caves and those of the explorers and cave-divers still searching for new, unmapped routes deep into the earth. This book explores the lure of the subterranean world by examining caving and cave tourism and by looking to the mythology, literature, and art of caves. This lavishly illustrated book will appeal to general readers and experts alike interested in the ecology and use of caves, or the extraordinary artistic responses earth’s dark recesses have evoked over the centuries.

Genres: Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2015

Reviews

[Sportyrod · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saved this book for reading just before I visited some show caves. This is an impressive one stop shop for everything caves. It covers topics such as literature that feature caves, lingo, discovery, rescues, prehistoric art, holy sites and karst geology. I was thoroughly impressed that such a range of sources were referenced.

The style is serious, objective and formal and lets the material speak for itself.

This would be suitable as a special interest book and could possibly pass as a textbook it is that thorough. I am wowwed at how much I learned from this book.

[Sohail · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entry level but all-encompassing book about caves that includes almost everything from the concrete to the abstract. After an introduction to what caves are, their different aspects (such as geologic, biologic, mythical, artistic, literary and cultural) have been discussed. The book is well-written and has a fluid style that flows just like an underground river inside a cave.

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was interesting. It could benefit from better defining a few subject-specific terms, but overall was easy to read and well structured to cover different ways of things about caves.

I'm going to look out for more volumes in this series!

[Kai · Rating 5 out of 5]

imagine if all lit reviews were this expansive and interdisciplinary and also had 75 pictures