Each of the twelve chapters of Islands in Deep Time begins with a quotation, and all but one of these are taken from Rachel Carson’s works. Her observations are frequently referenced and discussed in these chapters too, along with other literary and scientific writers, ranging from philosophers and poets such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau to scientific explorers such as Charles Darwin, James Dwight Dana, and Amadeus William Grabau.
Johnson’s book is a scientific monograph, but it is also a travelogue that charts a journey through both time and space. Johnson sees geology as a form of time travel, and posits that is‐ lands should be seen as worlds in microcosm. As such, his aim is to encourage the reader to view the landscape “with one eye on the present and the other trained to recognize and enter a former world preserved in intricate detail beneath the skin of the same landscape” (p. x). Islands are the perfect means by which to ask questions about and reflect upon the vast temporal flows that have shaped our planet.
~ Tim Chamberlain