«In the underworld, we have long placed what we fear and want to lose, and what we love and want to preserve...» Underland is an epic exploration of the Earth's underworlds as they appear in myth, literature, memory, and the Earth itself. Robert Macfarlane takes us on an impressive journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and the past and future of our planet. Traveling through "deep time"—the dizzying expanses of geological time that stretch far from the present—we move from the beginning of the universe to a post-human Earth, passing along the way through Bronze Age burial chambers, Parisian catacombs, melting glaciers in Greenland, "starless" rivers and Arctic sea caves, underground fungal networks through which trees communicate, and a deeply buried "hideaway" designed to store nuclear waste for 100,000 years. Global in its geography and written with lyricism and power, Underland speaks with a robust voice about our current moment. From its excellent opening pages to its deeply moving end, it is a journey into wonder, loss, fear, hope. Underland marks a new turn in Macfarlane's long-term mapping of the relationships between landscape and the human heart. Combining what belongs to the distant past with what is urgent now, this book will change the way you see the world. WRITTEN ABOUT THE BOOK Underland is undoubtedly Macfarlane's life's work... A book rich and blessed with erudition akin to Sebald, literary grace akin to Bruce Chatwin, vocabulary and syntax akin to Patrick Leigh Fermor. One of the most important non-fiction narratives of our time. WILLIAM DALRYMPLE, AUTHOR