Title: Underground Pdf A Human History of the Worlds Beneath Our Feet
Author: Will Hunt
Published Date: 2019-01-29
Page: 288
An Amazon Best Book of February 2019:A fascinating look at the life and history—human and otherwise—of the world beneath our feet, Underground explores the strange relationship people have always had with the dark, hidden corners of the earth, simultaneously afraid of potential dangers and entranced by the possibility of unseen wonders. While Underground’s subterranean adventures through tunnels, catacombs, and other claustrophobia-inducing locales are worth the price of admission alone, it’s the voyages into topics that on the surface may appear wide-ranging—such as the biology of caves in South Dakota, the songlines of the Indigenous Australians, and the similarities between ancient dwellings in Turkey and ant nests—that upon closer inspection reveal a surprising degree of interconnectedness and ultimately take the book into uncharted territory. A captivating read, Underground is both informing and an invitation to further curiosity about the world around and under us all. —Matt Fyffe “Genuinely exciting . . . beautifully written . . . [a] winningly obsessive history of our relationship with underground places [that has] the narrative drive of adventure stories.”—The Guardian“Provocative and satisfying. A book can often have its greatest impact by rethinking familiar terrain, forcing readers to reconsider their entrenched preconceptions. Will Hunt taps in to our deep fascination with what lies beneath the surface of things by exploring, quite literally, what's going on beneath the surface. By the end of your excursion through Underground, you may never look at a hole in the ground in quite the same way again.”—New York Times Book Review “Dynamic and engaging . . . [Hunt’s] clear excitement about this information is contagious. . . . Underground is a thoughtful, inquisitive book. Hunt approaches the subject with an unusual dedication and open-mindedness that is difficult to resist. . . . These traits, alongside the striking photography that appears throughout the book, makes Hunt's debut an admirable and successful one.”—NPR “It’s Hunt’s deeply personal connection to [the underground] that enlivens this endlessly fascinating book.”—The Toronto Star “Caves, catacombs, and tunnels come alive in this unusual guide to the surprising marvels and mysteries below us. . . . Hunt, who was first drawn underground as a curious child, finds plenty to appreciate, including ancient and modern artworks, signs of life’s beginnings on earth, and a sense of the transcendent.”—Christian Science Monitor “An unusual and intriguing travel book . . . Without belaboring the point, Hunt alludes to conjecture that all of life might have started underground, that it retains a revelatory diversity, and that the level below the Earth could be a womb as well as a tomb. Ultimately, he compellingly examines ‘how much of our existence remains in mystery, how much of reality continues to elude us, and how much deeper our world runs beyond what we know.’ A vivid illumination of the dark and an effective evocation of its profound mystery.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “A fascinating journey that transcends culture and time, linking modern and ancient practices to create a colorful mosaic. . . . [Hunt’s] excitement at traveling beneath the earth is infectious . . . a lively, informative read that nicely balances adventure with anthropology and science.”—Shelf Awareness “As Hunt’s journey progresses, you get the sense these forays are about more than just an adrenaline rush. What Hunt is really chasing, through the muck and darkness and stench and clammy cold, is a story of shared humanity.”—Vice “A thoughtful and often romantic examination of humanity’s relationship to underground spaces. . . . This is no travel guide, but a historical and philosophical examination the dual nature of what’s beneath us: since the birth of civilization, the underground has been a subject of fascination and fear, a symbol of birth and of death, of deprivation and of abundance, for the humans who walk above it. It remains a mystery, but this book brings us a little closer to illuminating the darkness.”—Lit Hub
When Will Hunt was sixteen years old, he discovered an abandoned tunnel that ran beneath his house in Providence, Rhode Island. His first tunnel trips inspired a lifelong fascination with exploring underground worlds, from the derelict subway stations and sewers of New York City to sacred caves, catacombs, tombs, bunkers, and ancient underground cities in more than twenty countries around the world. Underground is both a personal exploration of Hunt’s obsession and a panoramic study of how we are all connected to the underground, how caves and other dark hollows have frightened and enchanted us through the ages.
In a narrative spanning continents and epochs, Hunt follows a cast of subterraneaphiles who have dedicated themselves to investigating underground worlds. He tracks the origins of life with a team of NASA microbiologists a mile beneath the Black Hills, camps out for three days with urban explorers in the catacombs and sewers of Paris, descends with an Aboriginal family into a 35,000-year-old mine in the Australian outback, and glimpses a sacred sculpture molded by Paleolithic artists in the depths of a cave in the Pyrenees.
Each adventure is woven with findings in mythology and anthropology, natural history and neuroscience, literature and philosophy. In elegant and graceful prose, Hunt cures us of our “surface chauvinism,” opening our eyes to the planet’s hidden dimension. He reveals how the subterranean landscape gave shape to our most basic beliefs and guided how we think about ourselves as humans. At bottom, Underground is a meditation on the allure of darkness, the power of mystery, and our eternal desire to connect with what we cannot see.
Praise for Underground
“A mesmerizingly fascinating tale . . . I could not stop reading this beautifully written book.”—Michael Finkel, author of The Stranger in the Woods
“Few books have blown my mind so totally, and so often. In Will Hunt’s nimble hands, excursion becomes inversion, and the darkness turns luminous. There are echoes of Sebald, Calvino, and Herzog in his elegant and enigmatic voice, but also real warmth and humor. . . . An intrepid—but far from fearless—journey, both theoretically and terrestrially.”—Robert Moor, New York Times bestselling author of On Trails
From burials and catacombs to urban explorers I was totally blown away by this book. It opened a new (and old) world that I had only known tiny glimpses of. The writing is absolutely tasty and very well researched. I can't wait to see what else he produces - I will read them all!Do you know what's beneath your feet? Beneath my feet lies a 300 million-year-old petrified rainforest– the second largest in the world. Pictures of it can be seen here. It’s incredible to imagine that this snowy countryside was once a tropical rainforest and that its remains are now buried deep below where I stand today. Scientific proof of what once was. Do you ever wonder about what used to be? Do you wonder about what can’t be seen.Will Hunt’s curiosity about the unknown began the summer he turned 16, when he discovered an abandoned train tunnel that ran under his neighborhood. It was this experience that eventually launched his passion for urban exploring- a hobby that allowed him to travel all over the world as he sought out abandoned subway platforms (ghost stations), dodged police officers in foreign countries, and encountered “Mole People”. While in the Catacombs of Paris, he even came across an underground library, La Librairie, where urban explorers left books for others to borrow. Oh, my soul!I saw that we- all of us, the human species- have always felt a quiet pull from the underground, that we are connected to this realm as we are to our own shadow.I must say my favorite bit may have been the story about the “Mole Man of Hackney” who decided to dig a wine cellar in his basement and never stopped. He kept burrowing until his home started to collapse. In his words, “I just have a big basement.”Underground by Will Hunt was fascinating and really well done! If you are a fan of traveling from your couch or, like me, are simply saving your cabbage and working all the side hustles so you can travel in real life, this is the book for you! Hearing about his expeditions energized my sense of adventure and learning the science of the “worlds beneath our feet” caused me to look at things from a whole new perspective. Microbiologists keep finding life deeper and deeper inside the earth and are even discovering pockets of water that are more than a billion years old. In addition, it’s estimated that more than half of the world’s caves are undiscovered! We explore outer space, but there is so much to find here- our oceans and underground landscapes are just as much a mystery.as a former employee of amazon, I’d know Hunt makes dirt sound like a song; he weaves poetry out of pitch black.
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