Underground: A Human History of the Worlds Beneath Our Feet Audiobook (Free)

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 discovered an abandoned tunnel that ran beneath his house in Providence, Rhode Island. His initial tunnel trips inspired a lifelong desire for discovering underground worlds, in the derelict subway about Underground: A Human History from the Worlds Beneath Our Feet stations and sewers of New York City to the sacred caves, catacombs, and tombs, from bunkers to ancient underground metropolitan areas in a lot more than twenty countries all over the world. Underground can be both an individual exploration of Hunt’s obsession and a breathtaking study of how exactly we are connected to the underground, how caves and various other dark hollows have frightened and enchanted, repelled and captivated, us through the age range.

In a narrative spanning continents and epochs, Hunt comes after a ensemble of subterranea-philes who’ve devoted themselves to investigating underground worlds. He monitors the origins of life having a team of NASA microbiologists a mile under the Dark Hillsides, camps out for three days with metropolitan 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, follows a ghostlike graffiti designer writing stories in the subway tunnels of New York, and glimpses a sacred sculpture shaped by Paleolithic artists in the depths of a cave in the Pyrenees.

Each adventure is woven with results in mythology and anthropology, organic background and neuroscience, books and viewpoint. In elegant and elegant prose, Hunt cures us of our “surface chauvinism,” starting our eyes towards the planet’s concealed aspect. He reveals the way the subterranean landscape gave shape to our most basic values, including how we consider ourselves as humans. At bottom level, Underground is a meditation around the allure of darkness, the power of secret, and our eternal desire for connecting with what we cannot see.

Advance praise for Underground

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