The Atlas Of Forgotten Places

Explore the places that time forgot. These abandoned, mysterious, sleeping monuments around the world have been relegated to the margins of history. From ancient ruins and crumbling castles to more recent relics – an art deco New York subway station, a Soviet ghost town in the Arctic Circle, a flooded Thai mall teeming with aquatic life – Travis Elborough takes you on a journey into these strange, overlooked, and disappearing worlds and immortalizes them in this book of original maps, accompanied by moving historic and geographic accounts of each site. The featured locations are a stark reminder of what was, and the accounts in this investigative book help to bring their stories back to life, telling us what happened, when and why, and to whom. The book features 40 sites, including: Santa Claus, Arizona, USA: A festive tourist resort-turned-ghost town deep in the desert where you could once meet Santa Claus any day of the year; Crystal Palace Subway, London, UK: One of the city’s best-kept secrets is an underground, cathedral-like relic that many Victorian commuters bustled through; Montserrat, West Indies: The small Caribbean island with a population of 5,000 that was evacuated when its volcano erupted in 1995. The volcano is still active, and nearly half the island remains a designated exclusion zone; Balaklava Submarine Base, Crimea: The former top-secret Soviet submarine base that was kept off all official maps and known as Object 825 GTS; Volterra Psychiatric Hospital, Tuscany, Italy: Once dubbed ‘the place of no return’, this long-closed lunatic asylum once housed 6,000 patients who were never allowed to leave. From eerie ghost towns to epic undersea monuments, armchair travelers and adventure seekers will be captivated by this curious atlas of strange and surreal abandoned sites across the world. It follows on from the success of the award-winning title Atlas of Vanishing Places, and forms part of an atlas series that offers lesser-known histories of hidden, fascinating locations worldwide. Also in the Unexpected Atlas series: Atlas of Improbable Places, Atlas of Untamed Places, Atlas of the Unexpected and Atlas of Vanishing Places (WINNER Illustrated Book of the Year - Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2020).

Atlas of Improbable Places shows the modern world from surprising new vantage points that will inspire urban explorers and armchair travellers alike to consider a new way of understanding the world we live in.

Explore the places that time forgot. These abandoned, mysterious, sleeping monuments around the world have been relegated to the margins of history. From ancient ruins and crumbling castles to more recent relics – an art deco New York subway station, a Soviet ghost town in the Arctic Circle, a flooded Thai mall teeming with aquatic life – Travis Elborough takes you on a journey into these strange, overlooked, and disappearing worlds and immortalizes them in this book of original maps, accompanied by moving historic and geographic accounts of each site. The featured locations are a stark reminder of what was, and the accounts in this investigative book help to bring their stories back to life, telling us what happened, when and why, and to whom. The book features 40 sites, including: Santa Claus, Arizona, USA: A festive tourist resort-turned-ghost town deep in the desert where you could once meet Santa Claus any day of the year; Crystal Palace Subway, London, UK: One of the city’s best-kept secrets is an underground, cathedral-like relic that many Victorian commuters bustled through; Montserrat, West Indies: The small Caribbean island with a population of 5,000 that was evacuated when its volcano erupted in 1995. The volcano is still active, and nearly half the island remains a designated exclusion zone; Balaklava Submarine Base, Crimea: The former top-secret Soviet submarine base that was kept off all official maps and known as Object 825 GTS; Volterra Psychiatric Hospital, Tuscany, Italy: Once dubbed ‘the place of no return’, this long-closed lunatic asylum once housed 6,000 patients who were never allowed to leave. From eerie ghost towns to epic undersea monuments, armchair travelers and adventure seekers will be captivated by this curious atlas of strange and surreal abandoned sites across the world. It follows on from the success of the award-winning title Atlas of Vanishing Places, and forms part of an atlas series that offers lesser-known histories of hidden, fascinating locations worldwide. Also in the Unexpected Atlas series: Atlas of Improbable Places, Atlas of Untamed Places, Atlas of the Unexpected and Atlas of Vanishing Places (WINNER Illustrated Book of the Year - Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2020).

Maps offer us a chance to see not just how our world looks today, but how it once looked. But what about the places that are no longer mapped? Cities 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? Travis Elborough takes you on a voyage to all corners of the world in search of the lost, disappearing and vanished. Specially commissioned cartography showing each place as It once was and how it is today and archive photography bring these incredible stories to life.

A “fascinating” journey to little-known and contested lands around the globe, from Tibet to the Isle of Man to Elgaland-Vargaland (Geographical Magazine). What is a country? Acclaimed travel writer and Oxford geography don Nick Middleton brings to life the origins and histories of fifty states that, lacking international recognition and United Nations membership, exist on the margins of legitimacy in the global order. From long-contested lands like Crimea and Tibet to lesser-known territories such as Africa’s last colony and a European republic that enjoyed independence for a single day, Middleton presents fascinating stories of shifting borders, visionary leaders, and “forgotten” peoples. “Engrossing . . . You’ll not find Middle-earth, Atlantis or Lilliput inside, but you will find something just as intriguing . . . sure to prompt discussions about what makes a country a ‘real country.’” —Seattle Times

From author Jenny D. Williams, a fresh new voice in fiction, comes her stunning debut novel The Atlas of Forgotten Places. Set against the backdrop of ivory smuggling and civil war in Uganda and the DR Congo, it is a story of two women from different worlds, bound in a quest to save their loved ones. “Every page of The Atlas of Forgotten Places resonates with an intimate knowledge of life in ‘Africa’...the impossible beauty of the landscape, the depths of sorrows carried by ordinary citizens, the miraculous melding of violence and personal grace. Jenny D. Williams has written that rare thing: a page-turning adventure story that simultaneously goes deep into the heart of what it is to be human and present.” —Malla Nunn, award-winning screenwriter and author of A Beautiful Place to Die, Silent Valley, and Present Darkness After a long career as an aid worker, Sabine Hardt has retreated to her native Germany for a quieter life. But when her American niece Lily disappears while volunteering in Uganda, Sabine must return to places and memories she once thought buried in order to find her. In Uganda, Rose Akulu -- haunted by a troubled past with the Lord’s Resistance Army and a family torn apart by war -- is distressed when her lover Ocen vanishes without a trace. Side by side, Sabine and Rose must unravel the tangled threads that tie Lily and Ocen’s lives together—ultimately discovering that the truth of their loved ones’ disappearance is inescapably entwined to the secrets the two women carry. The Atlas of Forgotten Places is a book that delves deep into the heart of compassion and redemption. It spans geographies and generations to lay bare the stories that connect us all.

A classic of northern exploration and adventure, LAST PLACES is Lawrence Millman's marvelously told account of his journey along the ancient Viking sea routes that extend from Norway to Newfoundland. Traveling through landscapes of transcendent desolation, Millman wandered by way of the Shetland Islands, the Faeroes, Iceland, Greenland, and Labrador. His way was marked by surprising human encounters--with a convicted murderer in Reykjavik, an Inuit hermit in Greenland, an Icelandic guide who leads him to a place called Hell, and a Newfoundlander who warns him about the local variant of the Abominable Snowman. By turns earthy and lyrical, LAST PLACES is an ebullient celebration of the exotic North.

Series statement from publisher's website.