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