Gisli Pálsson

Shortlisted for the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book PrizeHow an iconic bird’s final days exposed the reality of human-caused extinctionThe great auk is one of the most tragic and documented examples of extinction. A flightless bird that bred primarily on the remote islands of the North Atlantic, the last of its kind were killed in Iceland in 1844. Gísli Pálsson draws on firsthand accounts from the Icelanders who hunted the last great auks to bring to life a bygone age of Victorian scientific exploration while offering vital insights into the extinction of species. Pálsson vividly recounts how British ornithologists John Wolley and Alfred Newton set out for Iceland to collect specimens only to discover that the great auks were already gone. At the time, the Victorian world viewed extinction as an impossibility or trivialized it as a natural phenomenon. Pálsson chronicles how Wolley and Newton documented the fate of the last birds through interviews with the men who killed them, and how the naturalists’ Icelandic journey opened their eyes to the disappearance of species as a subject of scientific concern—and as something that could be caused by humans. Blending a richly evocative narrative with rare, unpublished material as well as insights from ornithology, anthropology, and Pálsson’s own North Atlantic travels, The Last of Its Kind reveals how the saga of the great auk opens a window onto the human causes of mass extinction.

The life story of Hans Jonathan, Iceland's first Black citizen.  The island nation of Iceland is known for many things—majestic landscapes, volcanic eruptions, distinctive seafood—but racial diversity is not one of them. So the little-known story of Hans Jonathan, a free Black man who lived and raised a family in early nineteenth-century Iceland, is improbable and compelling, the stuff of novels. In The Man Who Stole Himself, Gisli Palsson lays out the story of Hans Jonathan (also known as Hans Jónatan) in stunning detail. Born into slavery in St. Croix in 1784, Hans was taken as a slave to Denmark, where he eventually enlisted in the navy and fought on behalf of the country in the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen. After the war, he declared himself a free man, believing that he was due freedom not only because of his patriotic service, but because while slavery remained legal in the colonies, it was outlawed in Denmark itself. He thus became the subject of one of the most notorious slavery cases in European history, which he lost. Then Hans ran away—never to be heard from in Denmark again, his fate unknown for more than two hundred years. It’s now known that Hans fled to Iceland, where he became a merchant and peasant farmer, married, and raised two children. Today, he has become something of an Icelandic icon, claimed as a proud and daring ancestor both there and among his descendants in America. The Man Who Stole Himself brilliantly intertwines Hans Jonathan’s adventurous travels with a portrait of the Danish slave trade, legal arguments over slavery, and the state of nineteenth-century race relations in the Northern Atlantic world. Throughout the book, Palsson traces themes of imperial dreams, colonialism, human rights, and globalization, which all come together in the life of a single, remarkable man. Hans literally led a life like no other. His is the story of a man who had the temerity—the courage—to steal himself.

Priama kniha plná nádeje Kniha skúma ľudstvo v antropocéne, novej geologickej epoche, ktorá predstavuje začiatok našej dominancie nad Zemou ako životne dôležitým zdrojom. Vďaka prirodzenej hojnosti životného prostredia ľudská spoločnosť síce prekvitá, lenže za cenu hromadenia rádioaktívnych, atmosférických a geologických vplyvov, ktoré zasahujú hlboko do vnútornej rovnováhy planéty a vyžadujú zmenu nášho spôsobu života. Antropológ Gísli Pálsson mapuje dramatickú krajinu klimatickej zmeny prostredníctvom podmanivého textu a silných fotografií, ktoré dokumentujú náš vplyv na základy sveta. Pútavá a poučná grafika ilustruje ohromujúce zmeny spôsobené ľudskou civilizáciou, zatiaľ čo osobné postrehy, ako je rozprávanie o účasti na pohrebe ľadovca, dávajú ostro vyniknúť stavu našej planéty. Kniha je priama, ale aj plná nádeje. Odhaľuje krízu, do ktorej sme priviedli náš domov, či stratené putá medzi ľudstvom a krajinou, no aj spôsoby, ako sa v tomto novom svete pohnúť dopredu. Z anglického originálu The Human Age: How we created the Anthropocene epoch and caused the climate preložila Mariana Hyžná.