Members' Lecture: The Drowned Places

Author and filmmaker Damian Le Bas will be in conversation with David Gibbins, author of A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks as they discuss Damian's second book, The Drowned Places. 

From Ancient Greece to Port Royal, Damian Le Bas embarks on a cultural exploration of diving, investigating sunken human ruins around the world and the marine life that thrives there now. 

As a young boy, Damian Le Bas was captivated by the story of the lost city of Atlantis. As an adult, he dreams of diving to discover its ruins. After the death of his father, torn between his lifelong desire and the taboo his Romany culture places on the ocean, he comes by chance across a dive shop. He can’t help but go in.

Under the waves, Damian enters a breathtaking world. As he masters the skills of this exhilarating sport, diving with seals in the Farne Islands, exploring submerged Roman ruins in Naples and mapping the sunken city of Port Royal in Jamaica, he is entranced anew, by wonders both man-made and natural.

Plato's writings on Atlantis were a parable about the hubris of humankind; in witnessing our effects on oceans and ocean communities, Damian finds echoes of this in the modern world. A spellbinding love letter to diving, The Drowned Places is a profound examination of the power that myth has over us, and what happens when it crosses over into reality.

There will be an opportunity for Members to purchase a copy of the book and get it signed after the talk. 

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Image Credit: Curtesy of Vintage Penguin Random House UK