A Celebration of the World’s Barrier Islands

From the North Carolina Outer Banks to New York's Fire Island, from Iceland to the Netherlands, and Colombia to Vietnam, barrier islands protect much of the world's coastlines from the ravages of the sea. A Celebration of the World's Barrier Islands is one part stunning coffee table book, and one part state-of-the-art popular science, and it will take readers on a long-distance journey from pole to pole and hemisphere to hemisphere that is altogether original.

From the Carolina Outer Banks to New York's Fire Island, from Iceland to the Netherlands and Colombia to Vietnam, barrier islands protect much of the world's coastlines from the ravages of the sea. Although these islands are vastly different in many ways, they also share many common features. Most dramatic among these is their dynamism—barrier islands are in almost constant motion, their advances and retreats powerful testimony to the force and beauty of nature—and their vulnerability in the face of a different kind of force, commercial and residential development.

This first-of-its-kind survey of barrier islands around the globe had its genesis in 1993, when geologist Orrin Pilkey met artist Mary Edna Fraser at Cape Lookout National Seashore in North Carolina. They soon realized they shared a passion for the barriers, one heightened by the many threats the islands face from development and global warming. These fragile and irreplaceable jewels, Pilkey and Fraser determined, needed to be better understood, and, as important, to be seen in a new way, if they were to be saved.

Every bit as dynamic as the islands they depict, Mary Edna Fraser's spectacular original batik artwork (silk cloth colored by hand using a modern variation of an ancient dyeing technique) has been exhibited in both science and art museums. Combined with Orrin Pilkey's engaging and informative text, they create a treasure of a book that is at once beautiful and rigorously scientific. Pilkey identifies three major types of barriers—coastal plains, Arctic, and delta—each with its own geological characteristics and particular morphologies, which are themselves shaped by several factors, including the absence or presence of underlying rock formations, tidal patterns, and vegetation. Employing the latest advances in geological mapping, Pilkey also identifies traces of ancient barriers marking long-lost shorelines—a further reminder that in the geological dance of land and sea, change is the only constant.

Praise for Mary Edna Fraser and her art:

"Pilot with a palette... as much of an artist in the midst of the creative process as Picasso laboring over his easel." —Michael Kilian, Chicago Tribune

"Fraser's works depict an organization and sensuousness in the land that is visible only from the air." —Susan Lawson-Bell, National Air & Space Museum

"Exhibited and collected around the world, her batiks have a common theme: promoting the awareness of environmental beauty and change on the planet as seen from the air. " —Carolyn Russo, Women and Flight

Orrin H. Pilkey is James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Geology and director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Duke University. He is the recipient of many awards, including the Francis Shepard Award for Excellence in Marine Geology, and the author or editor of many books, including The Beaches Are Moving: The Drowning of America's Shoreline, Living by the Rules of the Sea, and The Corps and the Shore.Mary Edna Fraser is a renowned artist specializing in the production of large-scale batiks, many based on aerial photographs. Her work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, the Duke University Museum of Art, the National Science Foundation, and the National Academy of Sciences.

Derek J. McGlashan:
This is an interesting and yet unusual book... It is a welcome addition.

Laura J. Moore:
If there is one book poised to have a positive impact on the future of the world's disappearing barrier islands, this is it.

Linda Kaun:
Pilkey's and Fraser's collaboration produces an emotional response to the beauty of our planet, one which proves that science and art can together deepen understanding.

Mary Ellen Riddle:
A book that not only is intellectually stimulating but aesthetically pleasing...Pilkey's book is eye opening and should be required reading.

Harold D. Palmer:
This is an attractive and thoughtful book...Highly recommended to all whose interests include coastal environments.

Andrew Goudie:
The global scope of this book is impressive.... this attractive book will succeed in stimulating other scientists to write about geomorphological features for the general public.

This book serves as a fine introduction to the world's diverse barrier islands, yet provides an enormous wealth of information.

[Pilkey] uses lively, engaging language to explain the origin, the long-term evolution, and the day-to-day processes that determine the distribution and morphological splendor of barrier islands... Original illustrations are magnificent and complement the elegance of the book.

Pilkey provides an informative guide to the wheres and wherefores of barrier islands—from the vacation meccas off the east coast of North America, to the exotic carbonate archipelagos of Mozambique, to the ice-battered slivers of tundra that line the Arctic Ocean. Aerial and satellite photographs illustrate each geological peculiarity that the text brings into focus, but the most remarkable images in the book are the batiks created by Mary Edna Fraser.

Ann Lloyd Merriman:
The fragility of those coastal areas is explored in Orrin Pilkey'sA Celebration of the World's Barrier Islands which takes readers on an illustrated jaunt to many of the barrier islands worldwide.

It's a wonderful tour, richly illustrated with colour and black and white photos. Mary Edna Fraser's silk batiks deserve special mention. They capture the sense of the islands remarkably well, giving us a keen birdseye view of the land.

Delicate renderings of the islands by artist Mary Edna Fraser look like vivid aerial-view paintings but are actually batik prints of the coasts, counterbalancing Pilkey's careful study of the 'restless ribbons of sand.'

A marriage of expertise and aesthetics.

Pilkey has written a highly engaging and intelligent book on the fragile beauty of the barrier islands.