"THE CONTEMPORARY LURE OF THE ISLAND"

Islands have exercised a fascination on the human imagination. Yet today it is possible to identify a positive need for island experience - an island imperative - in whole sectors of society in developed countries. This condition invites the geographer to investigate the nature and fundamental causes of this 'lure of the island'. In this paper, it is argued that the enhanced impact of islands on the human imagination is not a passing fad: there is rather an essential contribution of, and by, small islands and their inhabitants to the urban and globalised civilisation of our time. Copyright (c) 2004 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.