A panoramic investigation of the subterranean surroundings, from sacred caves and derelict subway channels to nuclear bunkers and ancient underground cities-an exploration of the annals, science, structures, and mythology from the worlds beneath our feet

When Will Hunt was sixteen years of age, he uncovered an left behind tunnel that went beneath his house in Providence, Rhode Island. His initial tunnel trips influenced a lifelong fascination with exploring underground worlds, from the derelict subway about Underground: A Human History from the Worlds Beneath Our Foot stations and sewers of New York City towards the sacred caves, catacombs, and tombs, from bunkers to ancient underground cities in a lot more than twenty countries all over the world. Underground is certainly both an individual exploration of Hunt’s obsession and a panoramic study of how we are linked to the underground, how caves and various other dark hollows possess frightened and enchanted, repelled and captivated, us through the age groups.

Within a narrative spanning continents and epochs, Hunt follows a cast of subterranea-philes who have devoted themselves to looking into underground worlds. He tracks the roots of life using a team of NASA microbiologists a mile beneath the Black Hillsides, camps out for three days with urban explorers in the catacombs and sewers of Paris, descends with an Aboriginal family right into a 35,000-year-old sacred mine in the Australian outback, comes after a ghostlike graffiti designer writing tales in the subway tunnels of NY, and glimpses a sacred sculpture molded by Paleolithic artists in the depths of the cave in the Pyrenees.

Each adventure is usually woven with results in mythology and anthropology, organic history and neuroscience, books and idea. In elegant and elegant prose, Hunt treatments us of our “surface chauvinism,” starting our eyes towards the planet’s concealed dimensions. He reveals the way the subterranean panorama gave shape to our most basic values, including how exactly we think about ourselves as human beings. At bottom level, Underground is normally a meditation within the allure of darkness, the power of mystery, and our eternal desire to connect with what we cannot see.

Advance compliment for Underground

“An unusual and intriguing travel book . As [Will] Hunt reveals the technological, historic, literary, mental, religious, and metaphorical qualities of his exploration, it starts to seem much less idiosyncratic than common, a pull that has persisted throughout civilization and a mystery that has however to be solved. The underground may represent hell to some, but it in addition has provided religious solace for centuries. . . . A vivid illumination of the dark and a highly effective evocation of its profound mystery.”-Kirkus Evaluations (starred review)