"This book is written in such an exciting way that I wanted to find various underground beasties. And that is the author's magic". -- Fate "This is a very well-written, all-inclusive, and absolutely unstoppable book... a brilliant goldmine. The illustrations are superb". -- Gnosis Magazine A delightful work tracing the history of hollow earth theories to their origins. A journey into the human imagination as much as a journey to the center of the earth. Includes dozens of rare photographs and drawings. An excellent book for both teens and adults.
A visual and anecdotal exploration of the curious worlds hidden beneath our feet, including ancient cities, salt mine cathedrals, underground amusement parks, and more. From bone-filled catacombs to sculpted salt churches to hand-carved cave complexes large enough to house 20,000 people, Underground Worlds is packed with more than 50 unusual destinations that take some digging to find. Award-winning travel writer David Farley revels in the unexpected, whether it is a cave city in China which houses one of the world's largest collections of Buddhist art or an old salt mine converted into a theme park in Romania. Stunning photos help readers see places they could not even imagine, such as a three-story underground train station in Taiwan that is home to the a 4,500-panel "Dome of Light" that is the largest glasswork on Earth, as well as secret spaces, such as an ornate temple built beneath a suburban home in Italy. Throughout the fascinating text are themed entries of underground systems such as the 2,500-year-old water tunnels of Kish Qanat in Iran or engineering marvels like the New York City steam tunnels.
"Oil is a fairy tale, and, like every fairy tale, is a bit of a lie."—Ryzard Kapuscinski, Shah of Shahs The scale and reach of the global oil and gas industry, valued at several trillions of dollars, is almost impossible to grasp. Despite its vast technical expertise and scientific sophistication, the industry betrays a startling degree of inexactitude and empirical disagreement about foundational questions of quantity, output, and price. As an industry typified by concentrated economic and political power, its operations are obscured by secrecy and security. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that the social sciences typically approach oil as a metonym—of modernity, money, geopolitics, violence, corruption, curse, ur-commodity—rather than considering the daily life of the industry itself and of the hydrocarbons around which it is built. Subterranean Estates gathers an interdisciplinary group of scholars and experts to instead provide a critical topography of the hydrocarbon industry, understood not solely as an assemblage of corporate forms but rather as an expansive and porous network of laborers and technologies, representation and expertise, and the ways of life oil and gas produce at points of extraction, production, marketing, consumption, and combustion. By accounting for oil as empirical and experiential, the contributors begin to demystify a commodity too often given almost demiurgic power. Subterranean Estates shifts critical attention away from an exclusive focus on global oil firms toward often overlooked aspects of the industry, including insurance, finance, law, and the role of consultants and community organizations. Based on ethnographic research from around the world (Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Oman, the United States, Ecuador, Chad, the United Kingdom, Kazakhstan, Canada, Iran, and Russia), and featuring a photoessay on the lived experiences of those who inhabit a universe populated by oil rigs, pipelines, and gas flares, this innovative volume provides a new perspective on the material, symbolic, cultural, and social meanings of this multidimensional world.
In "Subterranean Worlds Inside Earth," author Timothy Green Beckley has collected many stories from a vast wealth of sources on the subject of what is often called "The Inner Earth Theory." The theory holds that the Earth does not consist of molten metal at its core, as modern science tells us, but is instead quite hollow inside, and supports several different races of sentient beings as well as their impressive underground cities. Those cities are said to be linked to one another by underground tunnels with above-ground openings that the occasional surface-dwelling mortal stumbles on to. Much of the information Beckley presents comes from a man named Richard Shaver, a spot welder on the Detroit automobile assembly lines who one day began to hear strange voices projected at him as he went about his work. Following the trail that began with that unearthly auditory experience, Shaver eventually came to the conclusion that the voices were coming from somewhere beneath the Earth, from a race of creatures he came to call the "Deros," which is short for "degenerate robots." The Deros have a story of their own. They were once a gentle race who lived on the surface of the Earth, until it became apparent that the sun was being transformed in some way that caused an increase in the amount of a form of dangerous radiation contained in its rays. Some of the Deros escaped the planet by going into space in their highly-developed spacecraft, but not all of them managed to do so. Those forced to remain went underground and built the cities referred to above, but the sun's poisonous radiation also caused them to go insane and to develop cruel and sadistic personality traits. It is because of their evil madness that mankind suffers so much today, and Shaver himself experienced some bizarre mistreatments as he sought to learn more about the mysterious Deros. Shaver eventually published many of his Dero tales in a magazine called "Amazing Stories," which were so popular that they greatly increased the magazine's circulation. But Shaver's story of the Deros is only one of many versions of exactly what is down there in the Hollow Earth. Beckley also offers stories by journalist John J. Robinson and others whose research has turned up different legends and personal experiences, some of which tell of a hidden paradise below our feet where beautiful, spiritually benevolent creatures reside. Beckley's use of numerous and divergent reports helps to paint a wonderfully complete picture of the centuries of folklore that have become mingled with scientific fact through real-world investigations into the "Subterranean Worlds Inside Earth." Some of what's here stretches credibility a little more than might be totally comfortable. But if you have an appetite for unsolved mysteries that extend beyond the realm of the safe and the knowable, then Beckley's thorough overview of what may be inside the Hollow Earth is well worth the time spent reading it.
Humans have "gone underground" for survival for thousands of years, from underground cities in Turkey to Cold War-era bunkers. But our burrowing roots go back to the very beginnings of animal life on Earth. Many animal lineages alive now—including our own—only survived a cataclysmic meteorite strike 65 million years ago because they went underground.On a grander scale, the chemistry of the planet itself had already been transformed many millions of years earlier by the first animal burrows which altered whole ecosystems. Every day we walk on an earth filled with an underground wilderness teeming with life. Most of this life stays hidden, yet these animals and their subterranean homes are ubiquitous, ranging from the deep sea to mountains, from the equator to the poles. Burrows are a refuge from predators, a safe home for raising young, or a tool to ambush prey. Burrows also protect animals against all types of natural disasters. Filled with spectacularly diverse fauna, acclaimed paleontologist and ichnologist Anthony Martin reveals this fascinating, hidden world that will continue to influence and transform life on this planet.
Beneath the ice at the bottom of the Earth is a magnificent subterranean labyrinth, a place of breathtaking wonders—and terrors beyond imagining. A team of specialists led by archaeologist Ashley Carter has been hand-picked to explore this secret place and to uncover the riches it holds. But they are not the first to venture here—and those they follow did not return. There are mysteries here older than time, and revelations that could change the world. But there are also things that should not be disturbed—and a devastating truth that could doom Ashley and the expedition: they are not alone. With all the trademark elements that have made James Rollins a bestselling author around the world—pulse-pounding adventure, scientific intrigue, nail-biting suspense—Subterranean deserves a place in every thriller lover's collection. Even if you've read it before, you won't want to put this classic Rollins down.
