At this time of year, academic columnists often simultaneously vacation with their families and scramble to think ahead to plan their course syllabi for the year. As such, we often report back to our readers what smattering of “light,” or not-so-light, vacation books we have managed to squeeze in.
My travels this year took me, among other places, to visit family on the tiny mid-Atlantic island of Bermuda, just before Hurricane Ernesto descended upon it. Depending on your viewpoint, this destination easily conjures the mysteries and conspiracies of air and sea, the significance of tiny maritime outposts in the wider history of colonial and post-colonial geopolitics, or the awe-inspiring vastness of the world’s oceans relative to the human inhabitants of tiny islands. So I brought “vacation” readings regarding ocean governance, international law, and the impact of global geopolitics on vulnerable communities.
As luck would have it, our trip was cut short by weather. Ernesto’s disparate impacts on Puerto Rico and Bermuda afforded an opportunity to think not only about the relationship between earth, sky, sea and the Anthropocene, but also about community resilience in an era of extreme storms, both physical and political. Here are a few books I began perusing this month and which readers might like as they finish out their last weeks of summer.