Atlas of Vanishing Places: The Lost Worlds as They Were and as They are Today

Unexpected Atlases

by Travis Elborough

Imagine what the world once looked like as you discover places that have disappeared from modern atlases.

Have you ever wondered about cities that lie forgotten under the dust of newly settled land? Rivers and seas whose changing shape has shifted the landscape around them? Or, even, places that have seemingly vanished, without a trace?

Following the international bestselling success of Atlas of Improbable Places and Atlas of the Unexpected, Travis Elborough takes you on a voyage to all corners of the world in search of the lost, disappearing and vanished. Discover ancient seats of power and long-forgotten civilizations through the Mayan city of Palenque; delve into the mystery of a disappeared Japanese islet; and uncover the incredible hidden sites like the submerged Old Adaminaby, once abandoned but slowly remerging.

With beautiful maps and stunning colour photography, Atlas of Vanishing Places shows these places as they once were as well as how they look today: a fascinating guide to lost lands and the fragility of our relationship with the world around us.

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

208 pages, Hardcover

First published September 17, 2019

Reviews

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

What follows on tactile paper and in print, and through words and pictures, if even perhaps accessed digitally, is a survey of landscape and locations transformed by circumstances, some much disputed, or improbable and entirely unexpected; others, depressingly, almost grimly predictable. As such it ideally serves as a reminder of the mutability of existence but also a clarion call for the urgency of preserving what we hold dear for generations to come.

I read a digital ARC of the upcoming re-release of Atlas of Vanishing Places: The Lost Worlds as They Were and as They Are Today, and while it was maybe not as consistently fascinating as I had hoped, I must note that this format didn’t include the “beautiful maps” and “stunning colour photography” promised in the publisher’s blurb (there are some black and white photos, but, alas, I read an atlas without maps; perhaps unfair to rate). As for the writing: Recounting the stories of some three dozen or so “vanished and vanishing places”, author Travis Elborough’s approach and tone throughout is rather inconsistent — sometimes professorial, sometimes colloquial — and as each story only lasts a few pages, there’s not a lot of depth here. Again: it feels unfair to rate this without the maps (the original release won Illustrated Book of the Year at the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards), but this book feels more like a jumping off point than the final word; coffee table book, not text book. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final form.)

Spanning from Xanadu to Timbuctu, Atlas of Vanishing Places is divided into four sections: Ancient Cities (familiar ones like Petra and Alexandria; new to me: the lost cities of Mohenjo-Daro in Pakistan and Leptos-Magna in Libya); Forgotten Lands (like Chan Chan in Peru and the River Fleet in London); Shrinking Places (the River Danube and the Florida Everglades); and Threatened Worlds (Venice and the Great Barrier Reef). And initially, I thought this was exactly what I hoped it would be: An early entry is about the Hittites — mentioned in the Old Testament and said to have been as powerful as the Assyrians and Babylonians, archeologists wondered how they could have disappeared without leaving behind so much as a shard of pottery — but eventually, ruins were uncovered in the Anatolian region of Turkey that would be identified as Hattusa: the epicentre of the Hittite Empire, which had been settled as far back as the sixth millennium BC. That was a wow to me: the actual rediscovery of a vanished, but once powerful, empire. But some entries are like the “vanished'' city of Shi Cheng in China: founded in the Tang dynasty around 1,300 years ago, the city was intentionally flooded in 1959 in order to create the Xin’anjiang Reservoir and Xin’an river hydroelectric station. Shi Cheng disappeared beneath the newly manmade Qiandao Lake and “for nearly fifty years Shi Cheng was almost entirely forgotten”. It was “rediscovered” by divers in 2001, and now known as “The Atlantis of the East”, Shi Cheng has become a popular scuba diving tourist attraction. Huh. Lost for nearly fifty years. Not a mind-blowing wow to me.

As for the oddly colloquial writing style: In telling the history of Bodie, California — a gold mining ghost town that the state of California curiously maintains in the “state of arrested decay” it had when they took it over in 1962 (instead of preserving it to its “1880s heyday”) — Elborough writes:

Something like 90 per cent of gold rush prospectors are calculated to have been male. Who then can really blame them for wanting to kick back with a Scotch or a beer, play some cards, and seek the embrace of another, or the oblivion of the poppy pipe, after a day of breaking rocks. But almost inevitably in a town inhabited by armed, and not infrequently inebriated transients, some ‘madder and badder’ to tangle with than others, violent crime was a fact of life.

Or when describing the pressures currently experienced by the Chihuahuan Desert on the American-Mexican border — which is in a state of ecological decline due to the diversion of water from the bordering Rio Grande/ Rio Bravo — Elborough writes:

With a name believed to derive from the Nahuatl for ‘dry, sandy place’ (and subsequently bestowed on a local breed of small, hairless pet dogs) you’d expect the Chihuahuan Desert to be quite deserted. This, after all, is North America’s largest desert, and deserts, by and large, are typically arid places where a lack of living things (water, trees, people) tends to be fairly front and centre. But deserts, even the driest and least inviting to animals and plants, contain subtle multitudes. And rather like silences (outside of vacuums) and as John Cage demonstrated with his famous 4'33" piece, they are often noisy with life.

The latter sections — which primarily deal with places that are under threat of vanishing due to current human activity — are mostly depressing. We read about threats to the Great Wall of China (a study completed in 2014 found that three quarters of it was “poorly preserved”; in 2018 a section of the wall in Ningxia was even bulldozed for farmland without consequence); the Yamuna in India is ‘“one of the dirtiest rivers on the planet” (more than twenty drains dispense toxic chemicals and raw sewage directly into the Yamuna in Delhi alone), and at Agra, the filthiness of the Yamuna is causing the Taj Mahal to yellow as the river is failing to absorb air pollutants and other matter; there’s not much new to be learned about glacier loss in Glacier National Park, or the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, or increasing flooding in Venice.

On the other hand, I was intrigued (to the point of putting them on my fantasy travel bucket list) by the stories of two at-risk-of-vanishing locations: Skara Brae (or Skerrabra to the Orcadians) in the Orkney Islands (I had no idea that the Orkneys were only 80 km south of Greenland and experience some of the most extreme winds and waves in the world). Skara Brae (which was uncovered by extreme weather in 1850) consists of four circular dry-stone wall dwellings dating from between 3200 and 2000 BC and were, apparently, abandoned quite suddenly; leaving behind an incredible collection of Stone Age artefacts. As the weather becomes ever more extreme, this coastal site could be washed away at any time.

On the other end of the world, I was also intrigued by Tuvalu: “The fourth smallest nation on earth and comprised of six coral atolls and three reef islands flung across several thousand square miles of the South Pacific between Hawaii and Australia”, as far back as 1989 the United Nations declared them one of the “most likely groups to disappear beneath the ocean in the 21st century because of global warming”. Despite its tropical island setting, Tuvalu is the least visited place on Earth (drawing about two thousand tourists a year), their chief source of income comes from licensing its highly desirable internet domain, .tv, to an American company. Yet, despite many of its residents relocating to New Zealand for fear of the islands disappearing due to rising sea levels, a study by the University of Auckland in 2018 “maintained that the atolls far from shrinking have, overall, gained ground, with rising waves actually depositing more sediment onto their shores”.

I do appreciate that Elborough chose sites from all around the world — there are many locales included in this book that I had never heard of before, and that’s what I was hoping for — and I’ll say again that, without the maps included, my experience is incomplete. I will also say: I was never bored (even if I didn’t always appreciate the weirdly joking bits) but I guess I wanted more.

[♑︎♑︎♑︎ ♑︎♑︎♑︎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a delight. The anecdotes. The history. The maps. I was completely absorbed. It was fun to read, and sobering. The only thing I can say by way of criticism is that I wish it had been longer.

[Chrisl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Attractively packaged photos and brief descriptions of a wide range of places. Useful starting point for exploring previously unknown or little known locations.
The first section on 'Ancient Cities' most appealed. Had never heard of Mahabalipuruman or Hattusa.
Would like most to visit Ciudad Perdida, the Kogi culture described by Wade Davis in 'One River.'
One River
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kogi_pe...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattusa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_o...

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Atlas of Vanishing Places: The lost worlds as they were and as they are today by Travis Elborough

I received this digital ARC from NetGalley and White Lion Publishing in exchange for an unbiased review.

Related to earlier book Atlas of Improbable Places
Arak Sea in Uzbekistan, once the 4th largest lake in world, 1950s River diverted (Anu Darya and Syr Darya Rivers) to irrigate land for cotton. The author explores the evolution of land and changes occurred through nature and man which have continued to erode with each passing civilization.

There are many illustrated picture and maps of these once inhabited places. I found the history and archeological aspects interesting. It seems that I “knew” of these places but honestly never gave thought to whether they still existed. Some places seemed to exist only from history books and mythology.

The author provides detailed information on ancient cities, forgotten lands, shrinking places and threatened worlds. It provides thought provoking history of our ever changing world as a result of changes in each civilization.

[Thomas Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great photos. Tiny type. Surprisingly omits Amazonia. Sad ones include equatorial African rainforest, most of it is being logged off; Everglades, drying up as water is diverted to agriculture; Glacier National Park, melting.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfectly up my alley as a mixture of maps and geographical oddities. The actual "lost worlds" entries are the best - ancient Mayan capitals, Port Royal in the pirate era, abandoned gold rush towns, the river Fleet. Somewhat natural that they would have the most captivating stories since humans played a role in their construction/destruction.

I was surprised by a few natural world entries, like the river that changed direction over the course of four days. For the most part, though, if an element of the natural world is vanishing, it's humanity's doing. A bit of a downer and a consistent theme throughout the book. You can only read so many entries about waters rising and trees falling before they run together.

The maps could have been better, but mostly got the job done. I was unexpectedly drawn to the narratives that Travis Elborough lays out for each entry. Some are straightforward; some are tangent-filled. For a book that could have been all visuals, there's some real reading pleasure in Atlas of Vanishing Places.

[GONZA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, documented, and with nice photos. A must read if you are interested in disappeared or nearly disappeared civilizations.

Interessante, documentato e con delle belle foto. Da leggere se siete interessati alle civiltá scomparse o quasi.

I received from the Publisher a complimentary digital advanced review copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.

[Theediscerning · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book. For those who did Ur early in secondary school, and who can rattle off factoids about Hammurabi at will, comes this volume, which introduces us to what could be called the most important places that don't exist, and, gleefully, many are places you won't have heard of. The Hittites, yes, but their capital city, resplendent within miles of walls surrounding an imposing – if heavily restored – citadel? Alright, it only took until the third place here, Leptis Magna, before I hit one I'd actually heard of, but the fact remains – for someone such as I, who would claim some geographical nous on a TV quiz show, will have copious holes in their knowledge filled by these pages. Sticking with Leptis Magna – I might have been alright remembering its name, but could tell you nothing about it – but this volume call tell you what is known about it, map it, photograph it – and never have the feel of pure armchair research, which is superlative. Splitting it up into spurious categories of kinds of place, so cities and towns are replaced by a chapter of cities, towns, rivers and a whole island that's vanished, is daft, but that's the nearest thing to a flaw. The reasons for the places having vanished differ, but you do see an environmental thread before too long; it's good then that the focus is both on manmade environments as well as naturally occurring ones. This was right up my street – a road in several cases to nowhere I even knew existed.

[Marija · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a lover of history, I simply had to read this book. I was drawn from reading the synopsis. It was a pleasure reading about places I know and those who have sadly vanished by now. Photos and maps in it were very helpful and a big plus to the "stories" The stories kept my attention, and I liked that the author included places from all around the world, known and some that I never heard of before so I had a chance to "travel from my reading nook" and visit them

[Bartolomé Piña · Rating 5 out of 5]

He leído bastante sobre geografía y a veces me cuesta no encontrarme con historias que haya visto otras veces. En este libro, por suerte, he descubierto muchas nuevas. Si le sumas el buen gusto en la edición, los mapas y las imágenes… simplemente, literatura 🚬

[Pop Bop · Rating 4 out of 5]

Armchair Travel Through Space and Time

There are very good reasons why most of the places described in this book will never again be visited by travelers. Many are lost, some are buried, a few may never have existed at all. But, with engaging text, specially commissioned maps, and old photos and sketches, these places can be brought well enough to life to still fire the imagination.

The selection is generous and eclectic. There are many well known sites, (Petra, Palenque, Timbuktu), but most are recognizable only from legend and vague cultural memory, (Xanadu, Leptis Magna, Roanoke), if they are recognized at all, (Chan Chan in Peru, the Mosque City of Bagerhat). Each is treated, though, with style and sly wit.

The book is divided into four main sections - Ancient Cities, Forgotten Lands, Shrinking Places, and Threatened Worlds. You can get a sense of the sections from those titles. The Ancient Cities are in barely excavated bits and pieces, mostly now covered by sand, jungle, or sea. The Forgotten Lands are a bit more like ghost towns, if you expand your idea of what a ghost town can be. Shrinking Places, not surprisingly, are places sustained by water that is now disappearing, (Everglades). Threatened Places is a more predictable category - the cautionary tale - witness Venice, Glacier National Park, and The Great Barrier Reef.

The book is well researched and even the briefest pocket descriptions contain a wealth of fascinating detail and context. This isn't just a pretty coffee table book filled with photos and breezy descriptions. A real effort has been made to introduce the reader to what it is that made, or make, all of these places special and worthy of interest. Each site gets about three pages of densely formatted text, complemented by very good photos, and a map showing what is visible, what is suspected, what was, and what might still be hidden. Sometimes the descriptions are a bit brief and thin, but that's usually because there's not much to work with. Sometimes there is more detail and breadth. There is usually a description of how and when an ancient site was discovered, and there is often a fair try at providing some historical context. Through it all the author remains congenial and engaging, although sometimes glibness and humor are used to distract from the fact that little is actually known about a site.

As you might expect, none of the vanishing places are treated in complete or thorough depth. This book is, rather, a marvelous sampler and a tease to encourage the reader to find out more about places that intrigue her. There is certainly an excellent selection, ( thirtyseven entries), from which to choose. (In that regard, a selected bibliography will help send readers on their way.)

(Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

[Anjana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This particular book was different from the previous two Atlas' that I read. This is more of a paced history/geography lesson. It goes in order, introducing us to a place- both as it stands(or doesn't) now and how it used to be. There are pieces of information about the socio-economic conditions when it was a thriving location, the amount of information varies from place to place. It factors in the amount of upheaval that the place saw before 'Vanishing' from our current maps.

I am not sure if I will be purchasing this as well since I bought the last two and I am yet to re-read them. This is a beautiful series though and serves as a good coffee table edition, and can spark new life into flagging conversation at parties.

I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is completely based on my own reading experience.

[Tissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

AofVP, written by Travis Elborough, is a comprehensive book based on places that have either faded away already or are on the brink of fading. Divided in four sections (Ancient Cities, Forgotten Lands, Shrinking Places, and Threatened Worlds), it gives us a broad impression of cities and locations scattered around the world.

[Keep reading @ Bookshelves & Teacups]

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

The thing with reading Atlas of Vanishing Places: The Lost Worlds as They Were and as They Are Today by Travis Elborough is to go in with managed expectations. The collection of brief descriptions of places lost or lost then found or about to be lost is best thought of as an introductory sampler rather than a substantive look at each place, something that gives you just the minimum of information for you to decide if you want to do a bit more research. Read in that vein, it’s a solid collection, a bit eclectic/arbitrary in its choices but broad-based.

The book is divided into the following several sections (I’ve also given a few representative sites):
• Ancient Cities (Hattusa, Turkey; Xanadu, Mongolia; Ciudad Perdida, Colombia; Petra Jordon)
• Forgotten Lands (Chan Chan, Peru; Roanoke, USA; Lion City, China)
• Shrinking Places (the Danube, the Dead Sea, the Everglades)
• Threatened Worlds (Timbuktu, Mali; Skara Brae, Orkney; Congo Basin Rainforest)

Even from the brief list above you can see the wide range of geography and culture covered in the book one of the plusses. Each site gets 1-3 pages of text, though that’s a very rough estimate thanks to formatting issues on my Kindle App (sigh). As noted and as you can tell from the length, these are very brief, very introductory descriptions that don’t go too in-depth. They do vary in detail and quality, with some feeling more substantive in terms of history and physical detail and sense of research and others feeling like a snippet from Wikipedia. Each segment, regardless of its detail, comes with a number of illustrations, mostly photographs of the site, some historical some relatively recent. The sites themselves as mentioned are eclectic; sadly Elborough could have chosen any of a number of sites for such a book. But the list is a decent mix of the already-familiar (Petra, Everglades, Roanoke, Danube, Alexandria, Dead Sea, etc.) and the probably far less well known (Mahabalipuram, Skipsea, Esanbehanakitakojima).

From my viewpoint, because of the nature of the book (more a teaser than a full accounting), I’d call it the perfect library book as opposed to a book for purchase, especially as while there are a number of photographs, they’re not “coffee-table-display-for-guests” quality or size. A good book therefore to check out, get a sense of what sites you’re more interested in, return to the library, and then do more research.

[J.E. Rowney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ah I loved this book. If you're a map or geography freak like I am you need to get a copy of this book right now. Can't recommend it enough.

[AcademicEditor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the concept of this book as soon as I read the title and description. Our world is constantly changing and shifting, nothing is permanent, and documenting the places and things before they are gone is meaningful for ourselves as well as future generations. The author truly does these places justice. A wide variety of places are represented, not just the most famous or relatable examples. Each place gets a few pages, so it is not overwhelmingly long. The images are good quality and help to visualize the past.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the digital ARC.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Completely fascinating. I got lost down so many awesome Google rabbit holes while reading about all of these vanished/vanishing cities, islands, landmarks, natural wonders and civilizations that it took me 5 times longer to read this than it should've. Loved the maps overlaying the disappeared places with the current locations. Really, really cool idea for a book.

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thirty-seven locations which the author has placed in one of 4 categories. Some have been buried by time while others have been affected by human intervention.

Ancient Cities (11 - number of locations per category) - like Mahenjo-Daro in Pakistan, one of the largest settlements/cities of the Indus or possibly the Harappan civilization. Petra in Jordan, the capital of the Nabatean Kingdom. Roman Timgad of Algeria which is in remarkably good condition although not extensively explored due to the on-going threat of kidnapping and terrorism. Xanadu in Mongolia/China which is more literary legend although extensive ruins tantalize visitors. Some have been excavated even as archeologists are attempting to reconstruct the original city with the tantalizing clues left behind.

Forgotten Lands (11) - like London's River Fleet that has been buried and merged into the sewer lines beneath the city. The so-called Lost Sea located in the Craighead Caverns of Tennessee whose depth has not been determined even as explorers are extending the acreage of the underground spectacle. Chan-Chan of Peru, an ancient city that pre-dates the Incas. Esanbehanakitakojima, a small inlet off the coast of Japan that was likely swept away by wave action as it literally was no longer at it's charted location.

Shrinking Places (5) - the Everglades of Florida along with the Dead Sea of Jordan and Israel which are being effected not only by climate change but human intervention and incursion. The Slims River of the Yukon province of Canada whose feeder glacier had retreated enough that the other river that was fed by it completely took over the melt runoff.

Threatened Worlds (10) - the threat to the Great Barrier Reef of Australia and Glacier National Park of Montana (shared by Canada's Waterton National Park in Alberta) is basically all climate related. Skara Brae in the Orkneys could as easily be swept away by the same violent storms and waves which originally revealed it to the modern world. Timbuktu in Mali menaced not only by drought and the advancing Sahara but religious fundamentalists wishing to eliminate a city symbolizing a heretical sect. The Great Wall of China, which has seen much modification and restoration over the decades but due to it's immensity, much is crumbling and disintegrating from neglect. Tuvalu, an island nation in the Pacific, drowning under sea level rise. And the Congo Basin Rainforest which is/was the fourth largest in the world which is being decimated by logging and agricultural incursion yet little to no discussion of this rainforest reduction is mentioned in the media.

And interesting set of locations - many are well-known while others - while recognized by as UNESCO World Heritage and/or Cultural sites - are limited to the nearby regions.

2022-194

[Duncan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of brief profiles of "vanishing" places around the world, ranging from ancient cities to modern ghost towns to entire ecoregions. The topic is right up my alley, and many of the places, especially the archeological sites, were new to me. However, I found the connection between the places to be tenuous, and there is not much of an attempt to build an overarching narrative. For example, the Lost Sea at Craighead Caverns seems to be included mostly just because of its name.

I appreciated the inclusion of at least one map and photo with each location, although the maps were sometimes hard to interpret in black and white in the paperback edition. My biggest issue, however, was with Elborough's writing style. He has an annoying habit of overusing commas, then leaving them out when they're needed. His writing also has a certain level of British snootiness that started to get on my nerves as I progressed through this book.

Overall, though, I still enjoyed Atlas of Vanishing Places. It was a lot like going down an interesting Wikipedia rabbit hole. If that sounds good to you, then I recommend this book. For a deeper dive into why ancient cities were abandoned, I highly recommend Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age.

[Harry Churchward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy read. Compared to my previous read; Prisoners of Geography, being very similar books, this book takes a better approach to the topic of geo-politics in that it isn’t talking about the obvious. I knew some of it already, granted, but I wasn’t bored to death reading about Skipsea or Tuvalu. It was snappy.

Things can actually be learned from this book and that goes for everyone. Easily read in a day if you so chose, littered with pictures which I would say take up 30% of the book. Upwards of 50% for half pages.

[Ksensei K · Rating 3 out of 5]

I imagine this is meant to be an attractive and mildly entertaining coffee table book that people leaf through, skimming the brief commentary for interesting factoids. I think the book fills that niche very well.
It is made up of short, several page long chapters on obscure places vanishing (or vanished years ago) in various ways - from depopulation, flooding, droughts etc. They are grouped into topical sections in ways I don’t entirely understand.
Overall, I really enjoyed finding out the little interesting bits of information Elborough unearths and have nothing untoward to say about the text portion of the book. It does what it is meant to do. The graphics were a letdown though. This being an atlas I expected some high quality, diverse and engaging maps, but they are all fairly bland and simplistic, not delivering much information and not doing so in creative ways. Perhaps, it is the fault of the digital edition, and they all look much more impressive crisply printed on quality paper, but their informational paucity will persist printed or not. It seems like a real missed opportunity.

Thanks to NetGalley for a digital ARC of the book.

[April Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is destined to be the favorite coffee table book of many who enjoy history and geography. The author has assembled a fascinating mixture of well-known and obscure places that have become lost throughout history. You'll learn about ancient civilizations, the mysterious disappearance of the Roanoke Colony, and a government decision to wipe China's Lion City of the map.

There's also much more of note within this book's pages, including concise descriptions of each area/civilization, large, full-color photographs, and maps. You may not ever be able to visit the sites mentioned by Travis Elborough, but he certainly provides enough information to help you envision walking through many ancient streets.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC. This review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.

[Anett Kovacs · Rating 5 out of 5]

From well-known sites like the Dead Sea or the Great Barrier Reef to unsung places like Esanbehanakitakojima in Japan, Atlas of Vanishing Places takes you on a journey through "Ancient Cities", "Forgotten Lands", "Shrinking Places", and "Threatened Worlds". Elborough manages a statisfying balance between supplying plenty information about the places and keeping each chapter brief enough to make it a perfect pick for your daily commute or bedtime reading. Highly recommendable!

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really lovely coffee table book that gives a brief overview of many vanished or vanishing places. Perfect for curling up with a cup of tea and letting your imagination wander!

[Samantha Andreacchi · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s fine.

[Richard Derus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Real Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Maps offer us a chance to see not just how our world looks today, and how it once looked. But what about the places that have vanished from modern atlases? With beautiful maps and stunning photography, Travis Elborough takes you on a voyage to all corners of the world in search of the lost, disappearing and vanished.

2020 WINNER OF THE EDWARD STANFORD TRAVEL ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD

Discover unusual and secret places that have disappeared from modern atlases, and revel in imagining what the world once looked like. Award-winning author Travis Elborough takes you on a fascinating voyage to all corners of the world in search of the lost, disappearing and vanished.

Unearth ancient seats of power and long-forgotten civilizations through the Mayan city of Palenque; delve into the mystery of a disappeared Japanese islet; and uncover incredible hidden sites like the submerged Old Adaminaby, once abandoned but slowly remerging.

With beautiful maps and stunning colour photography, Atlas of Vanishing Places shows these sites as they once were, together with how they look today—it’s a travel guide, a modern atlas and a passage through geography like no other: travel writing has rarely been so inspiring.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I love the idea of travel more than the reality of it. My disabilities aren't forgiving of the physical exertion of my body that travel requires. A book like this one is a grace note in a more restricted life than most are required to lead. I'm glad that I could go on these historic-site voyages with the eloquent guidance of Author Elborough.

The Table of Contents is the clear road map of where we'll be going. It's always worth a close look, to gauge your giftee's interest in the book's direction.

Vanished Port-Royal, Jamaica:

A modern city submerged by an earthquake? Cool beans, four hundred years later. The tragedy no longer stings but the place is a fascinating reminder of what can happen to human places when the planet shrugs its shoulders.

The ruins of Mohenjo-Daro in modern-day Pakistan, on the dried-up course of the ancient Indus River:

The Indus Valley civilization is deeply fascinating if very underknown in the US, and the global north generally. Comparatively little attention gets paid to it, partly because it had the misfortune to be uncovered at the same time King Tut's tomb was dominating world archaeological news. Lacking gold "treasures" and charismatic stone statuary, it simply failed to gain traction. It's never recovered in the world's attention. It is so much older than other urban centers, and well-preserved because the Indus River dried up millennia ago, so no one ever came along to reuse the land on which it stands.

Examples of Author Elborough's agenda...places vanished from our collective memory and yet still present, more or less, to be visitable. Armchair travel is, for me, the best kind. The fact that these are all places with really intriguing history attached to them is a huge plus to elderly me as a reader.

Who in your gifting circle needs this? Who needs an escape from where they are, but can't do it in body?

Here's a great value-for-dollar way to help them.

[JoAnn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I reviewed this book with an eye towards its utility in the 1st year undergraduate history classroom. I teach 1st year and transfer students primarily, a 100-level World History course that has dual aims: first, introducing the basics of historical and empirical research skills (academic literacy, source/data collection, analysis, library use, written communication, among others) and second, emphasizing the connection between the present and the past through showing students the historical origins and contributing factors of some of the worlds environmental, economic, social, and political problems. We cover the history of racism, gendered disparities, queer histories, war, genocide, etc. In short, this is a decolonizing curriculum.

As many of my colleagues teaching similar courses can attest, professors in my position have a perennial problem finding suitable materials to use in our courses. Our materials need to be accessible in terms of language and cost; they need to be a certain length or have a certain depth to them that satisfies the intellectual integrity of the course, but is not overly theoretical or requires a prerequisite store of knowledge. Our courses have fixed learning outcomes that need to be met. Our students come from varied academic backgrounds, enter the classroom with varied levels of writing, reading, and analytical skills, which we have to accommodate.

A book like Atlas of Vanishing Places: The Lost Worlds as They Were and as They Are Today is a boon.

Here are the reasons why: first, the book is premised on the idea that artifacts as massive as cities and geological features are not eternal, immune to change or -- more significantly -- to human savaging. Elborough cites the Aral Sea and its incredibly rapid dissolution, within one person's lifetime, from a thriving marine ecology to an arid nothingness, as the inspiration for this collection of places that once thrived as the Aral Sea did and are now as dry and lifeless as it has become. This book forces the reader to acknowledge the power of time and the inevitability of change. I can't think of better evidence to emphasize the importance of history.

Second, the book is divided into short, digestible chapters which can be discretely cut out from the book and assigned, according to their fit into the course curriculum. Each chapter is about four to six pages long.

Third, the places and times explored in this collection cover the breadth and width of the world, every era of human history; it would be easy for an educator to focus in on the geographic region or time period of their choice. The book covers so much from ancient cities to contemporary and very recognizable landmarks: Timbuktoo to River Fleet in London.

Last, Elborough also provides the reader with sources and a bibliography. Some sources are better than others, but these are a gift to any student at the entry-point of a research project. Atlas of Vanishing Places: The Lost Worlds as They Were and as They Are Today serves as an excellent tertiary historical source, something to pique students' interests, something to give them a kick start on a research project.

I could easily see the use of this book in survey level archaeology courses, in introductory cultural anthropology course, in ancient or modern world history classes. In my particular case, it works very well in the Humans and Environment module of my class, where we cover the relationship between human behavior and environmental outcomes.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Quarto Publishing Group- White Lion for an advanced copy of this atlas of forgotten and disappearing sites around the world.

As we advance into the future so many things around us are disappearing. Technology goes obsolete and is discarded. Animals and plants are made extinct. Our sense of history, morals and shame are eroding away as politics and people go lower and dumber. Places too disappear, the west is loaded with ghost towns as mining fads came and went, or industrial towns that died because their industry was cheaper to make elsewhere. Travis Elborough in his latest book in the series Atlas of Vanishing Places: The Lost Worlds as They Were and as They Are Today, takes readers on a tour of the world where once great cities and locations, written of in song, poem, and heroic ballads, have been lost, forgotten, reclaimed by the earth, or sacrificed for both human expansion and human greed.

The book begins with a brief section on why things vanish, Man-made disasters, nature, war, failing and fallen empires or even just ennui. The book is broken into sections, Ancient Cities, Forgotten Lands, Shrinking Places and Threatened Worlds. A timeline in a way of wow things can go from important to dismissed by history. Places mentioned include Xanadu in Mongolia/ China, Roanoke in North Carolina, The Dead Sea in Jordan and the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. All are given brief descriptions, a history, importance, loss, discovery, or why the place is threatened and how its vanishing could be halted, complete with pictures and art.

The book is fascinating, as all the books in the series have been. A guide to places that aren't commonly known, or known from legends or settings in books, or sadly in the modern places, a location that is not given a though about where it might be going to. The text is short, but informative, giving enough of an overview to give a sense of what happened, with a bibliography listing more books for further investigation. The writing is a mix of both fact and melancholy, maybe not best read straight through, but to be dipped in for a few cities, as the long tale of history does get kind of familiar. A travel guide of extinction in a way.

A perfect book for history nerds, travellers and fiction writers who want to get an idea of the past and lost cities for their characters to explore. This is the third in the series, and I have read all of them, enjoying them all in special ways and yet finding myself strangely sad at the end of all of them. Soon there will be books written about our cities underwater from climate change, or lost in curable pandemics and religious/ political reasons we don't want to see coming. This book gives a good idea of what our future is going to look like.

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Atlas of Vanishing Places is an enthralling short book comprised of an introduction of what vanishing means and chapters including Ancient Cities, Forgotten Lands, Shrinking Places and Threatened Worlds. I have often wondered about civilizations and sites which have disappeared we have no idea about. My region in Europe is riddled with Roman ruins and it is not difficult to imagine what lies beneath, more than we would ever realize. Caves and underground lakes here are continually being discovered by farmers. Who isn't intrigued by mystery?

The author reminds us that maps can act as remembrances...several maps and photographs are included here. I have visited some places mentioned but had not heard of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, the latter which was a healthy, wealthy and very advanced civilization which existed about 2,500 BC. The Kogi people of Colombia are new to me as well the Roman settlement of Timgad in Algeria. Then there is the mighty Danube which is just a fraction of the size it used to be and the Dead Sea which is receding. Glaciers are rapidly melting in North America and Venice may disappear in three short decades.

Some places have vanished long ago and protected under water or sand such as ancient Helike. Others have been overgrown and hidden or are being eroded. An island in Japan disappeared and went unnoticed until 2018! Still others were wiped out by marauders, plagues and natural disasters. All are worth knowing about.

Anyone curious about vanishing places ought to read this overview of known and lesser-known places and peoples who have and are disappearing, some over hundreds of years and others merely a matter of days. Do not expect an in-depth study but rather a varied compendium which is, I think, the point.

My sincere thank you to Quarto Publishing Group - White Lion for the privilege of reading more about vanishing places, a compelling subject.

[Xavier Bas · Rating 2 out of 5]

It all starts promising: an Atlas of places that are disappearing, an opportunity to register them forever and at least save them perhaps not from destruction but from oblivion.

However, and this is something I didn’t pick up until half of the book, there is a great disparity on how locations are portrayed.

On one side of the coin, you can find landscapes, towns in the US, UK and Australia where people open a window into a personal experience of the place: where they landed, where they lived, where they imagined another world, where they battled or planted a flag.

On the other side of the coin, you’ll discover places that despite being built by humans, seem deserted, almost (as wild) as landscapes themselves. And this is precisely because they are empty of people or their experiences, as if they appeared on earth by magic.

It makes me think of the old British and French explorers who would understand alien folklore, culture and technology as minor expressions of a “lesser culturally advanced” human, de-personalising them, removing any agency and authorship.

This is somewhat problematic at present. Its flavour with hints of a moment in time when colonisation not only predated “uncharted” and apparently “uninhabited” territory, but also was the seed of a common cultural Western concept of the world, the richnesses of which could be sucked as an “oyster”, because no-one would claim them.

And the bibliography that is appended at the end confirms this suspicion. Amongst all the references, which are part of an English speaking world (let’s just remind ourselves that is not the totality of the planet) there are merely about 3 books translated from other languages.

The universality required to tackle the task of building an atlas should at least try to reach for global and diverse sources. Unfortunately, this is not the case.