Description

Since 1945, the essential nature of the Island's culture, economy—even its landscape — has been utterly transformed. Of course, time has never stood still here, but the changes in Island society between 1880 and the outbreak of the Second World War seem somehow superficial comparedto those that followed. Our past has grown suddenly distant. As we plunge headlong into an uncertain future, who is to tell us what we once were? In one sense, the task is simply impossible; in another, it is impossibly simple. For in many ways, that world is still within our grasp. Memory by memory, life by life, we can reconstruct some sense of the time that was. But memory is fleeting; soon, our chance will be gone.