James A. Oliver

James A. Oliver is an international writer, editor, and consultant - with a special interest in geographical and literary investigations, with a special focus on the Mediterranean littoral.

He is also the author of "A Footprint in the Sand", an epic political comedy inspired by a special assignment at the end of the Cold War, and "The Anarchist's Arms" - a stage play set in near-future London.

In 2006, "The Bering Strait Crossing: A 21st Century Frontier" was published worldwide. In 2007, he was invited to Moscow by the Russian Academy of Scientists to attend the World Link symposium on the subject. In 2009, these materials formed the basis for a Discovery Channel documentary broadcast that year. At the World Expo in Shanghai 2010, the Beringia link concept was awarded the Grand Prix for innovation.

From 2007-2009, he lived on the Ile Saint Louis in Paris, while working as a writer and editor on the Single European Sky (SES) project. In this interlude, he also developed the script for "The Pamphleteers" (2010), which investigates the birth of journalism on a timeline from the Reformation to the revolutions in America and in France, with profiles of Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe, Thomas Dekker, John Milton, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift - and Tom Paine. "There was freedom of expression in this era," James Oliver reminds the gentle reader, "so long as you were prepared to pay for it at the end of a rope."

"Strait of Gibraltar: Non Plus Ultra End of the World" (work-in-progress) is an investigation of the great waterway that links the Atlantic Ocean with the Mediterranean Sea and forms the inter-continental divide between Europe and Africa across the legendary Pillars of Hercules. Publication is scheduled for 2019 as the second part of the trilogy Where Continents Meet.

James Oliver is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.