Geography
Double dutch: the many meanings of ‘Holland’
The title of the keenly awaited volume of memoirs by John Martin Robinson sounds like a crossword clue: Holland Blind…
The map as a work of art
’Tis the season of complacency, when we sit in warmth and shiver vicariously with Mary and Joseph out in the…
Surrounded by sea and sky: the irresistible draw of islands
Holiday islands, desert islands, love islands, islands of eternal youth, siren islands, islands filled with screaming demons. Of all the…
Our rivers, as much as our oceans, are in urgent need of protection
Geography can be history and history geography — and sometimes the most obvious things are overlooked. Laurence C. Smith’s Rivers…
The desolate beauty of the Thames Estuary
We ought to cherish the haunted landscape of the Thames Estuary while we can. The grey hulks of old power…
How Polynesia came to be inhabited is still one of the world’s great mysteries
Later this month, a boat builder from Lake Titicaca in Bolivia will fly to the Russian city of Sochi to…
The unearthly powers of the North Pole
Having spent too much of my life at both poles (writing, not sledge-pulling), I know the spells those places cast.…
British street names: short, simple and unpretentious
You know where you are with a British street name. I don’t mean literally. I mean there’s a tacit humility…
Alexander Humboldt: a great explorer rediscovered
The Prussian naturalist Alexander von Humboldt was once the most famous man in Europe bar Napoleon. And if you judge…
The Maldives: sun, sand and fanaticism
Suddenly, the Maldivians are in the news. Earlier this year, they locked up their first democratically elected president, and just…
What are 16-year-olds supposed to learn by making posters?
My niece, Lara, 15, has a mind like a surgical blade. On any subject, from calculus to The X Factor,…
Escape from Omnishambleshire: the case for the old county boundaries
If you want real local identity to thrive in England, put the old county boundaries back on the map
A Labour MP defends the Empire – and only quotes Lenin twice
In a grand history of the British empire — because that is what this book really is — you might…
