Peninsulas: A Geography of Almost Islands

This volume offers a first comprehensive geography of peninsulas, in which 'almost islands' serve as windows onto how peninsularity shapes politics, identity, nation building, and engineering ambitions.

Like other geographies, peninsulas influence, but never dictate, human choices. Nineteen chapters, spanning multiple scales and disciplines, interrogate three interlocking themes: the internal divisions within peninsulas; the tensions across their isthmuses, and the engineering and political imagination that isthmuses provoke. The result is a theoretically grounded yet empirically diverse collection of works that will equip students and scholars with fresh tools for understanding how land, water, and borders shape identity, territorial transformations, governance, and power.

Written primarily for students and scholars of geography, geopolitics, and international relations, it will also appeal to those working in political science, anthropology, history, and island studies. Its global reach and accessible writing make it equally relevant to the intellectually curious general reader drawn to questions about place, identity, and borders.

Godfrey Baldacchino (PhD, Warwick, United Kingdom) is professor of sociology at the University of Malta, Malta. He served as Canada Research Chair and UNESCO co-chair (island studies) at the University of Prince Edward Island, Canada. He was President of the International Small Islands Studies Association (ISISA) (2014-22). He served as Malta’s Ambassador-at-Large for Islands and Small States (2021-24). He is the founding editor of Island Studies Journal and Small States & Territories, two diamond open access journals. Author or editor of some 50 books and monographs, including The Routledge International Handbook of Island Studies (2018), he is well regarded internationally as a specialist in island and small state studies.

Ritienne Gauci (PhD, Portsmouth, United Kingdom) is associate professor in geography at the University of Malta, Malta. She is Malta’s national representative for the International Association of Geomorphologists (IAG). Her research focuses on physical geography, particularly coastal geology and geomorphology, erosion forms and processes, geoheritage, and hazards. She is Deputy Director of UM’s Doctoral School, an executive board member of the Malta Map Society, member of the MATSEC Geography Board of Examiners, and was a founding committee member of UM’s Maritime Platform. Her research involves collaborations with various international institutions on a number of European-funded projects. She has authored more than 70 publications, including the edited volume Landscapes and Landforms of the Maltese Islands (2019).