Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction

(Hardback)

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From an award-winning historian of race, science and empire, a path-breaking and poignant history of extinction as a scientific idea, an imperial legacy and a political choice Anyone alive today is among a tiny fraction of the once living- over 90 percent of species that ever lived are now extinct. How did we come to think of ourselves as survivors in a world where species can vanish forever, or as capable of pushing our planet to the verge of a sixth mass extinction Extinction, Sadiah Qureshi shows us, is a surprisingly modern concept. In Europe until the late eighteenth century, species were considered perfect and unchanging creations of God. Then in the age of revolutions, scientists gathered enough fossil evidence to piece together that mammoth bones, for example, were not just large elephants but a lost species that once roamed the Earth. Extinction went from being viewed as theologically dangerous to pervasive, even natural. Yet Europeans and Americans quickly used the idea that extinction was a natural process to justify persecution and genocide, predicting that nations from Newfoundland's Beothuk to Aboriginal Australians were doomed to die out from imperial expansion. Weaving together pioneering original research and breath-taking narrative storytelling, Vanished explores the tangled and unnatural histories of extinction and empire.

Reviews

Illuminating and disturbing in equal measure. A poignant and powerfully written account of the intellectual revolution that birthed the concept of extinction; a concept deployed to both justify and animate colonialism and even extermination. A vital and important book -- David Olusoga
A marvellous, troubling, moving and important book lit with hope, Vanished is an intellectually acute history of both the idea and the reality of extinction. In a series of fascinating examples ranging from the fates of entire peoples to the remains of a single bird in a museum, Qureshi illumines how our ideas of extinction have been forged and shaped by myriad things, from the intellectual debates of eighteenth-century naturalists to the brutal history of colonialism and the political context of the Cold War. I learned so much from Vanished and am so grateful for it -- Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk
A compelling homage to living and extinct beings, Qureshis masterpiece is a superbly written, urgent and heart racing volume. Unweaving the threads of centuries of teleological explanations, imperial scientific approaches and offering a new path to understanding mass extinction is a stroke of genius. Vanished is enthralling, devastating and yet empowering -- Olivette Otele, author of African Europeans
One of our most innovative historians guides us with grace, humility and conviction through the daunting, tangled thickets of species extinction and human extermination. Qureshi warns us that scientific advancement and enlightenment are not necessarily compatible but encourages us that they can be -- Professor Alan Lester, Professor of Historical Geography, University of Sussex

Author Bio

Sadiah Qureshi is a writer and historian of science, race and empire. Currently a Chair of Modern British History at the University of Manchester, she has written for the London Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement and New Statesman. She cannot bear the thought of living in a world without trees or tigers.