UNDERGROUND: A Human History of the World's Beneath Our Feet

When Will Hunt was 16 years old he discovered an abandoned tunnel that ran beneath his house in Providence, Rhode Island. His first tunnel trips inspired a lifelong fascination 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 20 countries around the world. 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 of sculpture moulded by Palaeolithic artists in the depths of a cave in the Pyrenees. Each adventure is woven with mythology and anthropology, natural history and neuroscience, literature and philosophy and told in an elegant and graceful prose. Feel the lure of the darkness and our desire to connect with what we cannot see. 'A fearless, eloquent and truly insightful guide, Will Hunt takes us through the hidden worlds beneath our feet, from guerrilla art galleries to ancient sacred chambers to lost worlds inhabited by lost souls. Along the way, Hunt initiates us into a suite of subterranean mysteries that span geography, culture and time, awakening the dormant but profound allure the underworld holds for us...' - John Vaillant. 276pp, illus, US first edition with tiny remainder mark.