THE MALDIVES

In just a few decades, a tiny state has managed the feat of making itself famous in the eyes of the whole world as the example of paradise on Earth, dethroning the Seychelles or Bora-Bora. The Maldives is the kind of country that nobody knows how to position on a world map, but whose name everyone knows. We don't even know who told us about it the first time. A couple of friends returning from a honeymoon? An advertisement in the subway? A ranking of the most beautiful beaches in the world? Or one of those Powerpoint files of photos of blue lagoons that people exchanged by e-mail at the beginning of the internet? In the popular imagination, the Maldives, we never go there. It's too expensive. Will the paradise be up to our imagination? The most informed among us wonder why a supposedly paradisiacal state is so often plagued by political violence and religious fundamentalism. Environmentalist wonder whether a landscape that is proclaimed paradise should be a natural territory preserved with coral or a tourist counterfeit. This colorful book offers a 360° panorama of the history, geography and culture of the Maldives.