For all those who bought Greta Mackenzie’s previous best-seller ‘Why Patagonia?’, originally published in 1995, and long out of print, there is a treat in store for Greta has written an updated and much expanded version of her famous book, with lots more photographs, many in colour, and accounts of her further visits to Argentina and Chile in 1996 and 2002, to trace the many family links between Lewis and Patagonia first established a century ago.

The book describes an almost unbelievably dramatic episode in island history, an extreme example of the way people from the islands, and particularly Lewis, travelled literally to the other end of the world to find employment on the sheep ranches of Patagonia and start new lives in one of the most inhospitable environments on earth. The economic and social circumstances which drove this emigration, mainly in the first decades of the 20th century, have of course changed dramatically, but the human and family legacy survives.

And it is the human side of the story, as Greta discovers long-lost relatives, and the descendants of emigrants from Carloway, Uig, Laxdale, South Lochs, Ranish, Leurbost, Stornoway, Laxay, and Keose, as well as her own Achmore, which will most appeal to islanders today. This is truly living history, and a story which will have a personal resonance with many people.