Science & Math
Earth Sciences
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Underland: A Deep Time Journey
National Bestseller • New York Times "100 Notable Books of the Year" • NPR "Favorite Books of 2019" • Guardian "100 Best Books of the 21st Century" • Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award
From the best-selling, award-winning author of Landmarks and The Old Ways, a haunting voyage into the planet's past and future.
Hailed as "the great nature writer of this generation" (Wall Street Journal), Robert Macfarlane is the celebrated author of books about the intersections of the human and the natural realms. In Underland, he delivers his masterpiece: an epic exploration of the Earth's underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself.
In this highly anticipated sequel to his international bestseller The Old Ways, Macfarlane takes us on an extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind. Traveling through "deep time"―the dizzying expanses of geologic time that stretch away from the present―he moves from the birth of the universe to a post-human future, from the prehistoric art of Norwegian sea caves to the blue depths of the Greenland ice cap, from Bronze Age funeral chambers to the catacomb labyrinth below Paris, and from the underground fungal networks through which trees communicate to a deep-sunk "hiding place" where nuclear waste will be stored for 100,000 years to come. Woven through Macfarlane's own travels are the unforgettable stories of descents into the underland made across history by explorers, artists, cavers, divers, mourners, dreamers, and murderers, all of whom have been drawn for different reasons to seek what Cormac McCarthy calls "the awful darkness within the world."
Global in its geography and written with great lyricism and power, Underland speaks powerfully to our present moment. Taking a deep-time view of our planet, Macfarlane here asks a vital and unsettling question: "Are we being good ancestors to the future Earth?" Underland marks a new turn in Macfarlane's long-term mapping of the relations of landscape and the human heart. From its remarkable opening pages to its deeply moving conclusion, it is a journey into wonder, loss, fear, and hope. At once ancient and urgent, this is a book that will change the way you see the world.
24 illustrations
From the best-selling, award-winning author of Landmarks and The Old Ways, a haunting voyage into the planet's past and future.
Hailed as "the great nature writer of this generation" (Wall Street Journal), Robert Macfarlane is the celebrated author of books about the intersections of the human and the natural realms. In Underland, he delivers his masterpiece: an epic exploration of the Earth's underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself.
In this highly anticipated sequel to his international bestseller The Old Ways, Macfarlane takes us on an extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind. Traveling through "deep time"―the dizzying expanses of geologic time that stretch away from the present―he moves from the birth of the universe to a post-human future, from the prehistoric art of Norwegian sea caves to the blue depths of the Greenland ice cap, from Bronze Age funeral chambers to the catacomb labyrinth below Paris, and from the underground fungal networks through which trees communicate to a deep-sunk "hiding place" where nuclear waste will be stored for 100,000 years to come. Woven through Macfarlane's own travels are the unforgettable stories of descents into the underland made across history by explorers, artists, cavers, divers, mourners, dreamers, and murderers, all of whom have been drawn for different reasons to seek what Cormac McCarthy calls "the awful darkness within the world."
Global in its geography and written with great lyricism and power, Underland speaks powerfully to our present moment. Taking a deep-time view of our planet, Macfarlane here asks a vital and unsettling question: "Are we being good ancestors to the future Earth?" Underland marks a new turn in Macfarlane's long-term mapping of the relations of landscape and the human heart. From its remarkable opening pages to its deeply moving conclusion, it is a journey into wonder, loss, fear, and hope. At once ancient and urgent, this is a book that will change the way you see the world.
24 illustrations
Editorial Reviews
"Mesmerizing…Underland is a portal of light in dark times."
― Terry Tempest Williams, New York Times Book Review
"An excellent book―fearless and subtle, empathic and strange."
― Dwight Garner, The New York Times
"Reading Macfarlane connects us to dazzling new worlds. It's a connection that brings, more than anything else, joy."
― Barbara J. King, NPR
"Incantatory…A worthy companion to the historian Simon Schama's monumental Landscape and Memory."
― Marcia Bjornerud, Wall Street Journal
"Brilliant."
― Peter Fish, San Francisco Chronicle
"Exquisite. "
― Ryan J. Haupt, Science
"Quietly prophetic. "
― Jedediah Purdy, Atlantic
"Profound in every sense of the word."
― Richard Powers
"Underland is a devastating act of witness and a clear, cogent, lyrical examination of the darknesses invisible beneath our feet."
― Lauren Groff
"Underland is a profound reckoning with humankind's self-imperiled position in nature's eternal order. At once thrilling and soulful, raw and erudite, it is a book of revelations."
― Philip Gourevitch
― Terry Tempest Williams, New York Times Book Review
"An excellent book―fearless and subtle, empathic and strange."
― Dwight Garner, The New York Times
"Reading Macfarlane connects us to dazzling new worlds. It's a connection that brings, more than anything else, joy."
― Barbara J. King, NPR
"Incantatory…A worthy companion to the historian Simon Schama's monumental Landscape and Memory."
― Marcia Bjornerud, Wall Street Journal
"Brilliant."
― Peter Fish, San Francisco Chronicle
"Exquisite. "
― Ryan J. Haupt, Science
"Quietly prophetic. "
― Jedediah Purdy, Atlantic
"Profound in every sense of the word."
― Richard Powers
"Underland is a devastating act of witness and a clear, cogent, lyrical examination of the darknesses invisible beneath our feet."
― Lauren Groff
"Underland is a profound reckoning with humankind's self-imperiled position in nature's eternal order. At once thrilling and soulful, raw and erudite, it is a book of revelations."
― Philip Gourevitch
Readers Top Reviews
Z DawitUncle AlbertM
The underworld as you’ve never seen it before! Macfarlane goes and takes you deep into the hidden realms just beneath our feet…from the Paris catacombs to mines deep under the sea and more. Most humans are completely oblivious to the miles of tunnels, shafts and caves that are part of the landscape we inhabit…this will open your eyes those natural and man made spaces in the Bowels of the earth. Highly recommend
Daoist58
Macfarlane has written less a book than a testament to places nearby that might just as well be in another solar system, for most of us. He does not take his job lightly; bring us down into these dark places, he carries along an enormous weight of thought and knowledge from a long list of sources. It’s appropriate - I would not want to explore these worlds with a stand-up comic, as fun as that might be. So it took me a while to work my way through this book, and that was okay, because the author mixes unyielding fact with a kind of warm breeze of poetry and humane compassion which often left me thinking - or more, just feeling - what he had written for days afterward. Other times, I must admit, it moved a bit slowly for me, and my eyes tired of the endless description. That’s on me though; I’m a poor reader thee days, my concentration whittled away by the Internet and small crossword puzzles. I admire the heft, the research, the daring that went into his book. I’m grateful to the author for taking us to the places he has been.
J WalkingDave DeWitt
Written in a literary style as the author is describing his experiences with “underland locations.” Not quiet what I was hoping for, which was more science and history of the underland. Not bad, just not as expected. Some parts were more interesting than others, the locations were fascinating. Still think 1/4 of the book could have been cut for wordiness.
Immer
Under Land is my first journey in the writings of Robert Macfarlane. I caught the tail end of an MN NPR interview with him and was interested enough to give Under Land a try. Under Land is an interesting book, yet at times the stories of his journeys in the subterranean world lost their momentum, and some of the caving depictions were captivating but increasingly claustrophobic. Macfarlane’s vehicle of rapid fire sentence fragment/alliterations, as he physically and sensually experiences his locales are more often than not, exciting. I believe anybody who has been on the “edge” in their adventures understands the feelings Macfarlane puts to print. The clarity of enduring these stimuli never really leave ones mind, and the author captures this well As a reader, I liked what Macfarlane does, as he ventures into, under and above the worlds surface, and then explains with the science behind the area about which he is writing. I found myself wishing for more of the science, in particular about the ice cores (one of the many parts of the book where I just could not put it down) but I guess that’s not what the book was about. Under Land transitions from the world under us, both natural and urban, to cave art and the celebration of life, to ice cores and the signatures of the Anthropcene, plastic garbage that is ubiquitous in our world, to nuclear waste storage and devising warnings for those who might follow. Unlike the prior celebrations of life, but a warning of death, thus, “are we being good ancestors”. Robert Macfarlane’s Under Land is a good book, and provides the stimulus to try either his past books, or perhaps those to come.
Cassandra_was_rightI
Every page makes the reader seriously reconsider the earth on which s/he stands, having always - so far - felt it to be permanent, eternal, and uninteresting. No, it's not. It's nothing like that at all and MacFarlane makes this fact abundantly and gracefully clear and convincing. Four stars, only due to the kinda tiresome and very long internal and navel-gazing that arises late in the book. But still irreplaceably magnificent and unique. Thank you, Mr. MacFarlane!
