J. Edward Chamberlin – författare

“We need to understand our stories because our lives depend upon it.” -- Ted ChamberlinThe stories we tell each other reflect and shape our deepest feelings. Stories help us live our lives -- and are at the heart of our current conflicts. We love and hate because of them; we make homes for ourselves and drive others out on the basis of ancient tales. As Ted Chamberlin vividly reveals, we are both connected by them and separated by their different truths. Whether Jew or Arab, black or white, Muslim or Christian, Catholic or Protestant, man or woman, our stories hold us in thrall and hold others at bay.Like the work of Joseph Campbell and Bruce Chatwin, this vital, engrossing book offers a new way to understand the hold that stories and songs have on us, and a new sense of the urgency of doing so. Drawing on his own experience in many fields -- as scholar and storyteller, witness among native peoples and across cultures -- Ted Chamberlin takes us on a journey through the tales of different peoples, from North America to Africa and Jamaica.Beautifully written, with insight and deep understanding, If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? examines why it is now more important than ever to attend to what others are saying in their stories and myths -- and what we are saying about ourselves. Only then will we understand why they have such power over us.From the Hardcover edition.

Islands have been at the heart of our desires, and our fears, forever. *Island* tells the groundbreaking story of humans and islands, and islands and nature, from the beginning of time to the present. Drawing on history, literature, art, anthropology, biology, and earth science, *Island* explores the human settlement of islands—including the seafaring skills required to cross the seas—and describes in vivid detail the spectacular flora and fauna of islands as well as their earth-shattering geology. It shows that ever since humans have been traveling and telling tales, they have been fascinated by islands. Creation stories around the world speak of land rising out of the water, and there are many literary island encounters—from Noah to Prospero and Gulliver, and from Ulysses to Robinson Crusoe and the Count of Monte Cristo. In real life, too, sailors and settlers, explorers and scientists, pirates and artists, have all been drawn to islands. The story of islands is also the story of our planet, from its beginning as an island in space to the contemporary appearance and disappearance of islands in the cycles of climate change and seismic upheavals.