A story of human resilience

“The first of March 1954 the people on the Nortwestern Atolls of the Marshall Islands woke up to a light so strong it was mistaken for a second sun in the sky.”

This is the opening line of Beijer Institute programme leader, political scientist Victor Galaz’ new book Sea of Islands (Hav av öar). Travelling through Oceania, Victor tells the story of a region whose people are paying the price of colonialism, the climate crisis, and corrupted dreams of crypto-paradises.

What is the book about?

The brief answer would be that the book is about people who survive the unthinkable and achieve the impossible. It begins by telling the story of the explosion of a hydrogen bomb as powerful as a thousand Hiroshima bombs on the Bikini Atoll on March 1st, 1954. I explore how this and 66 additional American nuclear weapons tests on the atolls of the Marshall Islands, now interplay with a warmer and changing planet and the erosion of a rule-based world order.

But most of all, I think, it tells a story of how incredibly brave people (young and old) from the Pacific and its diaspora, have achieved truly remarkable things at the international level. Their struggles and achievements provide important lessons for us in the North in times of geopolitical tensions, and they are worthy of our deep respect and recognition.

How did you become interested in these subjects and this region?

I came across a news story about the attempts by two Chinese businessmen, well a couple in fact, who tried to set up a cryptocurrency zone on an abandoned atoll, Rongelap, in the Marshall Islands. I was so intrigued about why this atoll had been abandoned, and learnt about the American, French and British nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific. It really pulled me into the history of nuclear testing, its impacts on ecosystems, cultures and people, also discovering its co-evolution with accelerating climate change.

What surprised you most during the research and writing process?

The close interplay between planetary change and nuclear weapons. There are deep connections between these issues on the personal, local and international level in ways that I found truly stunning, and in need of more research. People affected by the harmful legacy of nuclear tests, for example, now face rising sea levels that pose yet another existential risk to their way of life.

Internationally, Pacific Island states like the Marshall Islands are punching well above their weight in climate negotiations largely powered by people who have experienced the harms of nuclear injustices. Few know that one of the most remarkable landmark climate wins as of late – the International Court of Justice advisory opinion on climate change in 2025  – was inspired by a previous case in the same court about nuclear weapons led by the Marshall Islands.

How does this story connect to your research?

In so many ways. First, it tells the story about the people affected by what some call ”the nuclear Anthropocene”, that is, the suggestion that one of the clearest signals of our entrance to a human dominated Earth system are the numerous nuclear weapons tests that began after World War II.

In addition, my writing combines research about challenges to govern technologies on a planet that is under rapid change, growing geopolitical tensions, while at the same time affecting ecosystems and people deeply. I’m convinced that this kind of nuanced and fact-based storytelling really is the only way to communicate and understand the very complex multitemporal and cross-scale issues we work with at the Beijer Institute.

You say in your introduction that you hope that the book shows the power of care and consideration, what do you mean?

The story I tell is to a large degree scary, dark, and full of injustices. It speaks of the heavy, almost unfathomable, emotional toll of loss, both as a result of nuclear fallout and climate change. But there is also a common thread in all meetings that I describe, of the immense agency and power that people who care deeply about others have when they mobilize as one.

Victor Galaz is also a researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University. The book is published by Fri Tanke publishers in Swedish. 

Excerpt in Swedish