In most accounts of geographical phenomena, islands in the middle of the oceans are marginalized and implicitly viewed as of little importance. This is a convenient rather than a rational view and one which is comprehensively disposed of in this book which examines the great diversity of island environments worldwide and the controls on their development.

This book also demonstrates what are for most people the unusual qualities of many island environments: their often simple geology and structure (which hold such important clues to ocean-basin evolution), and their dominantly maritime climates, which together make oceanic islands natural laboratories without equal.

Yet this book does not dwell solely on these unusual qualities but also gives a thorough account of oceanic islands worldwide. Dr. Nunn draws his examples from oceanic islands across the globe: of the seventeen case studies in this book, five come from the Atlantic (two from the Caribbean), two from the Indian Ocean, and ten from the Pacific.

This book should be of interest and accessible to anyone with an interest in oceanic islands, their origins and development, and should prove informative to a variety of specialists including geographers, geologists, geophysicists, oceanographers and prehistorians.