Vanished

A compelling homage to living and extinct beings, Qureshi’s 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 <i> African Europeans </i>

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 <i> H is for Hawk </i>

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

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

Highly readable and academically rigorous... traces the entanglements of race, empire and colonialism to better understand extinction

Maya Goodfellow, Guardian

Both authoritative and readable, panoramic in its scope and incisive in its argument... a truly original, challenging and consequential book

Gary Younge

Dark, persuasive, detailed, poetic… exquisitely attuned to the (often overlooked) historical and political contexts in which scientific ideas thrive

Anjana Ahuja, Financial Times

Groundbreaking

Andrew Robinson, Nature

A poignant, compassionate exploration of the tangled and unnatural histories of extinction and empire. Professor Qureshi skilfully interweaves fascinating original research and compelling storytelling to show us that extinction is both an evolutionary process and a human act: one which illuminates our past, and may alter our future

Forbes

Qureshi’s definitive account demonstrates that histories of extinction, empire, race and genocide must be written and read together... Acknowledging extinction’s unnatural history may help us choose otherwise

Helen Anne Curry, TLS

Qureshi’s rigorous, fascinating narrative traces how understanding the regrettable impermanence of species such as the dodo and the Tasmanian tiger was reformulated, by dull minds in powerful places, into a justification for exploitation

Telegraph Greatest Books of 2025

Wide-ranging... Qureshi deftly considers how narratives of extinction have shaped how we see the world—and each other

A Smithsonian Magazine Best Science Book 2025

Vital... a breathtaking account of extinction

New Indian Express