Vanished:
An Unnatural History of Extinction
Sadiah Qureshi
Allen Lane
Extinction, Sadiah Qureshi shows us, is a surprisingly modern concept – and a phenomenon that is not as natural as we might think. In Europe until the late 18th century, species were considered perfect and unchanging creations of God. Then in the age of revolutions, scientists gathered enough fossil evidence to determine that mammoth bones, for example, were not just large elephants but a lost species that once roamed the Earth alongside ancient humans. Extinction went from being regarded as theologically dangerous to pervasive, and even inevitable.
Yet Vanished shows us that extinction is more than a scientific idea; it is a political choice that has led to devasting consequences. Europeans and Americans quickly used the notion 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.
Exploring the tangled and unnatural histories of extinction and empire, Vanished weaves together pioneering original research and breath-taking storytelling to show us extinction is both an evolutionary process and a human act: one which illuminates our past, and may alter our future.
- Dazzling in its breadth and originality, Vanished is a sobering, brilliant account of the idea and reality of extinction in the natural and human world.
Wolfson History Prize judges
An exclusive extract, read by Sadiah.
- I am in awe of life on earth. I find profound joy in sharing a planet with bird song, trees and tigers so I worry that the lifeways around us are taken for granted and often treated as little more than an exploitable resource.
Sadiah Qureshi
About the author
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, the Times Literary Supplement and the New Statesman. She cannot bear the thought of living in a world without trees or tigers.
