Overview: A New Perspective of Earth Hardcover – October 25, 2016 by Benjamin Grant (Amphoto Books )

This is a gorgeous, information-packed book, full of high resolution satellite images that would make astounding wall art. But this is not your average coffee-table book...it's an incredible and unique view of the world. Despite my decades of work in the environmental sciences, this book provided new insights, showing man's ecological, architectural, and terra-forming impacts -- for better and worse -- in ways that I had never seen before. It drove home to me what amazing things humans are capable of, how resilient and resourceful we are, and also how destructive we can be, in ways that even the best environmental writing can't always communicate. The balance between text and photos is perfect: enough to clearly explain each photo, but not so much as to get in the way of the amazing images. The text does not impose a particular point of view on the reader, but you will certainly have opinions as you fly through it. The geographic coordinates for each photo are a wonderful inclusion, too: you can easily use Google Earth to provide even greater context for the photos that intrigue you the most. For those who think or worry or are hopeful about the future of humanity on Planet Earth, this book has tremendous immediacy.

This wonderful book is a  stunning and unique collection of satellite images of Earth that offer an unexpected look at humanity, derived from the wildly popular Daily Overview Instagram account.

Inspired by the "Overview Effect"--a sensation that astronauts experience when given the opportunity to look down and view the Earth as a whole--the breathtaking, high definition satellite photographs in OVERVIEW offer a new way to look at the landscape that we have shaped. More than 200 images of industry, agriculture, architecture, and nature highlight incredible patterns while also revealing a deeper story about human impact. This extraordinary photographic journey around our planet captures the sense of wonder gained from a new, aerial vantage point and creates a perspective of Earth as it has never been seen before.