Sunken Lands: A Journey Through Flooded Kingdoms and Lost Worlds

From Stone Age lands that slipped beneath the English Channel to the rapid inundation of New Orleans, Gareth E. Rees journeys through drowned forests, shrinking wetlands, vanishing islands and sinking towns to explore stories of flooded places from the past – and those disappearing before our eyes. Floods have been part of humanity’s story from its very beginnings. Across millennia, each time the waters rose, the climactic trauma left its mark on our ancestors, influencing religion, folklore and culture across the world. But while floods lead to violent change, death and extinction, they are also about renewal and rebirth as part of the ebb and flow of Earth’s natural cycles. The places lost to the eternally shifting boundaries between water and land continue to have a powerful emotional resonance today. Their uncertain features emerge to haunt us, briefly, when the moon draws back the tide to reveal a spire or a tree stump. But, imbued with myths and warnings from the past, these underwater worlds can also teach us important lessons about the unavoidability of change, the necessity of harmonising with nature’s flux and the folly of trying to control it. Sunken Lands peels back the layers of silt, sea and mythology to reveal what our submerged past can tell us about our imminent future as rising sea levels transform our planet once more.

About the Author :
Gareth E. Rees is the author of Unofficial Britain, longlisted for the Ondaatje Prize and one of the Sunday Times best books of the year 2020. He's also the author of Car Park Life, The Stone Tide and Marshland. His first short story collection, Terminal Zones, was published in 2022 and examines the strangeness of everyday life in a time of climate change. He lives in Hastings with his wife and children.

Review :
‘An evocative and essential guide to disappeared places and difficult futures.’ Will Wiles, author of Plume    ‘A rich, haunting account of lost lands and vanished futures.' Professor David Farrier, author of Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils    ‘A beguiling exploration of lost worlds beneath the sea’ Merlin Coverley, author of The Art of Wandering     ‘A reassuring perspective on the Anthropocene: the ebb and flow of civilisations, the inevitability of change and our capacity for renewal. Thoughtful and necessary writing.’ Sonia Overall, author of Heavy Time  ‘ Sunken Lands is a wonderfully immersive exploration of our fascination with all things antediluvian. Gareth Rees dives deep to give us stories of watery landscapes as varied as the once wildlife-rich Lincolnshire Fens, hurricane-haunted New Orleans and the inundated relics of a drowned Roman resort beneath the Bay of Naples.’ Edward Parnell, author of Ghostland    ‘Given the stark warnings contained within, it is admirable that this book is such a joy to read. Its opening precis of fluctuating seas mixes scientific poise with the relish of storytelling … A musician as well as an author, Mr Rees always writes with imagination and lightly worn songfulness.’ Country Life ‘From a fabled drowned kingdom in Wales to echoes of Noah's ark in the Mahabharata, warnings of hubris in abusing nature resonate in Gareth E. Rees's world tour of flood myths’ New Scientist Online