Eyeing the end of times

摘要

Interactions between the environment and culture become apparent with greater clarity and urgency for island habitats and their human communities. The natural ecosystem seems more bounded, humans are more dependent on local relationships and politicaldynamics take place at the community and family level. In Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island, Eric Swift skilfully and with empathy captures these environmental and cultural dynamics as they are lived and experienced on the Chesapeake Bay island of Tangier, Virginia. Principal among these challenges is the erosion of the island's shoreline and marshes, a natural phenomenon that is predicted to increase due to climate change-induced sea-level rise, and more frequentand severe storms.