Unearthed

*** A GARDENS ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF THE YEAR*** 'A beautiful book about nature...I recommend it' Afua Hirsch, author of Brit(ish) A powerful work of memoir and storytelling that will change the way we think about the natural world. Unearthed is the story of how Claire Ratinon found belonging through falling in love with growing plants and reconnecting with nature. Like many diasporic people of colour, Claire grew up feeling cut off from the natural world. She lived in cities, reluctant to be outdoors and stuck with the belief that success and status could fill the space where belonging was absent. Through learning the practice of growing food, she unpicked her beliefs about who she ought to be. Over her first year living in the English countryside and with the first vegetable patch of her own, she finds a pathway back to nature's embrace. And through growing the food of Mauritius, recording her parents' stories and exploring the history of the island, she also strengthens her connection to her homeland. Unearthed urges us to look to the world outside for the belonging and home we seek. It is a heartfelt call to reconsider our history, the way we think about nature and the complex relationships we all have with the land.

*** A GARDENS ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF THE YEAR*** 'A beautiful book about nature...I recommend it' Afua Hirsch, author of Brit(ish) A powerful work of memoir and storytelling that will change the way we think about the natural world. Unearthed is the story of how Claire Ratinon found belonging through falling in love with growing plants and reconnecting with nature. Like many diasporic people of colour, Claire grew up feeling cut off from the natural world. She lived in cities, reluctant to be outdoors and stuck with the belief that success and status could fill the space where belonging was absent. Through learning the practice of growing food, she unpicked her beliefs about who she ought to be. Over her first year living in the English countryside and with the first vegetable patch of her own, she finds a pathway back to nature's embrace. And through growing the food of Mauritius, recording her parents' stories and exploring the history of the island, she also strengthens her connection to her homeland. Unearthed urges us to look to the world outside for the belonging and home we seek. It is a heartfelt call to reconsider our history, the way we think about nature and the complex relationships we all have with the land.

How nineteenth-century environmental sciences laid the groundwork for global mineral extraction. Unearthed depicts a pivotal moment during the nineteenth century: As European and settler schemes to govern ever larger territories intensified, the earth and atmospheric sciences were also becoming more global in scope, assembling models of the planet while making use of militarized or highly industrialized systems. These efforts were informed by the physique du monde , or global physics, of Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), a program of vast data collection that spanned four hemispheres that aimed to determine general, scientific laws about the planet and its environments. Using Humboldt's itineraries as a frame, Unearthed traces an information order that linked far-flung industrial sites and frontier stations, from Prussian provinces to the Spanish and Russian empires. Humboldt intersected with Saxon miners, Mexican cartographers, and Siberian surveyors, among other itinerant Germans who mobilized the labor and resources of widespread mining operations for global surveys of earth and air. Interweaving the histories of capital and climate, Patrick Anthony takes readers from mines to mountains to show how the sciences of Humboldt's circuits both measured and made modern natures. These sciences of the mineral frontier, he argues, ultimately laid the groundwork for carbon-intensive economics and a logic of unending extraction. Wide-ranging and ambitious, Unearthed will interest scholars working in the history of science, global history, and the environmental humanities.

How nineteenth-century environmental sciences laid the groundwork for global mineral extraction. Unearthed depicts a pivotal moment during the nineteenth century: As European and settler schemes to govern ever larger territories intensified, the earth and atmospheric sciences were also becoming more global in scope, assembling models of the planet while making use of militarized or highly industrialized systems. These efforts were informed by the physique du monde , or global physics, of Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), a program of vast data collection that spanned four hemispheres that aimed to determine general, scientific laws about the planet and its environments. Using Humboldt's itineraries as a frame, Unearthed traces an information order that linked far-flung industrial sites and frontier stations, from Prussian provinces to the Spanish and Russian empires. Humboldt intersected with Saxon miners, Mexican cartographers, and Siberian surveyors, among other itinerant Germans who mobilized the labor and resources of widespread mining operations for global surveys of earth and air. Interweaving the histories of capital and climate, Patrick Anthony takes readers from mines to mountains to show how the sciences of Humboldt's circuits both measured and made modern natures. These sciences of the mineral frontier, he argues, ultimately laid the groundwork for carbon-intensive economics and a logic of unending extraction. Wide-ranging and ambitious, Unearthed will interest scholars working in the history of science, global history, and the environmental humanities.