Flatness

Reviews / Votes

The most original and surprising book Ive read this year. If you thought flatness equates with dull, you were wrong . . . Superbly researched, full of erudition, each chapter utterly surprising . . . A really important contribution for understanding how we have transformed our planet in our own image. * Michael Bravo, Senior Lecturer in Geography at the University of Cambridge * Once youve started on it, you wont be able to put it down. * Tim Ingold, Chair in Social Anthropology, University of Aberdeen * Flatness is the uneven, fascinating work of a true scholar enthusiast. Flatness: effervescent . . . Clearly the essential element of Flatness is the notion of variance. I can think of few books where the discussion ranges from abstract expressionism to flat earth theories, microtopography and hunting. Perhaps most remarkably, given the obvious potential in the subject matter for sky-high geyser-spouting nonsense, the book is almost entirely free of sub-philosophical cant and cultural studies jargon. Even at his most polemical, Higman manages to write with admirable clarity and precision . . . The book is therefore original and surprising but also reassuringly sane and straightforward . . . There may be few readers who are willing or able to follow Higman all the way as he strides confidently across the various fields of ontology, geomorphology, physiology, theology, the philosophy of science, and discussions both of the technique of profile measurement and the meaning of musical and pictorial flatness, but those who do will find the long journey across this vast territory worthwhile * The Spectator * BW Higman has a sixth sense: he sees flat surfaces. Be they screens, furniture, walls, streets, railways, or even level playing sports fields . . . A key premise of this book is to explore why latness, a feature found rarely in nature, is something humans have tried hard to produce in civilisation . . . Higman shows how the world's great flat areas, such as the Australian bush and the North American prairies, are often portrayed culturally as featureless places of unease, loneliness, even madness . . . [Flatness] shines when linked to real-world issues such as the flat, low-lying countries facing the rise of sea levels and the toll of globalised industry on natural resources * Geographical Magazine * Higman is a companionable writer and employs a mix of anthropological, historical, and artistic perspectives in his many apt descriptions of modern life in this survey of all things flat. The book may well stimulate others to probe further or to ask comparable questions about speed or brightness. Recommended * Choice *