New Haven S Sentinels

Located some 600 miles from the coast of India, Sentinel Island is the home of the last people entirely cut off from the modern world, the Sentinelese. No one knows where they come from, what language they speak, their beliefs. Only one thing is certain: for centuries they have violently rejected outsiders who set foot on their island, including Venetian travellers, British colonists, shipwrecked Chinese, Malaysian poachers, European monarchs, or American missionaries. Sentinel Island tells the story of this people and of Krish and Markus, two friends who have little in common other than their fascination with this forbidden island. One is an anthropologist of Indian origin in a badly fraught marriage to an American woman; the other an unmarried New York editor, heir to an enormous fortune built in the art market. Swept up in a grand adventure, Sentinel Island is the story of peoples in far-flung places, friendship, class relations, contemporary America, the gradual unravelling of an interracial marriage—and the story of globalization and those who attempt to escape it.

West Rock and East Rock are bold and beautiful features around New Haven, Connecticut. They resemble monumental gateways (or time-tried sentinels) and represent a moment in geologic time when the North American and African continents began to separate and volcanism affected much of Connecticut. The rocks attracted the attention of poets, painters, and naturalists when beliefs rose about the spiritual dimensions of nature in the early 19th century. More than two dozen artists, including Frederick Church, George Durrie, and John Weir, captured their magic and produced an assortment of classic American landscapes. In the same period, the science of geology evolved rapidly, triggered by the controversy between proponents and opponents of biblical explanations for the origin of rocks. Lavishly illustrated, featuring over sixty paintings and prints, this book is a perfect introduction to understanding the relationship of geology and art. It will delight those who appreciate landscape painting, and anyone who has seen the grandeur of East and West Rock.