A look at the new TED Book, “Minescape: Waging War Against Land Mines”

Long after a war is over, land mines continue to maim and kill. In Minescape: Waging War Against Land Mines, artist and photojournalist Brett Van Ort shares a collection of photographs documenting the tragic and unforeseen consequences of leftover land mines from the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Through unsettling photographs of deceptively innocent landscapes, descriptions of the various types of land mines and chilling images of prosthetic limbs and metal joints, Minescape reminds us of the lingering threats of war that often remain in times of peace.

Minescape is the first TED Book to be released in conjunction with a print edition, and will complement an art book to be published by Daylight Books in April 2013. This will also mark one of the first projects from the newly launched Daylight Digital. But the TED Books version of Minescape will be a little different, pairing Van Ort’s moving photographs and personal accounts with Joel Whitney’s globe-trotting investigative essays. It also includes multimedia features that detail the continued impacts of land mines as well as innovative techniques for land mine detection, allowing photography lovers and academics-alike to go beyond the images.

Minescape is available for Kindle and Nook, as well as through the iBookstore. Or download the TED Books app for your iPad or iPhone.