Dissonance is produced by any landscape that enchants in the present but has been a site of violence in the past. But to read such a place only for its dark histories is to disallow its possibilities for future life, to deny reparation or hope - and this is another kind of oppression. If there is a way of seeing such landscapes, it might be thought of as "occulting': the nautical term for a light that flashes on and off, and in which the periods of illumination are longer than the periods of darkness.
What will survive of us is more likely to be our sewer systems than surface structures, the author points out as he journeys underworld, through caves and catacombs, experiencing nature's beauty and exploring human effect on the Earth which is not always beautiful. (Non-fiction)