The World Beneath Our Feet

“Frank Ashwood reveals a startling world that lies beneath our feet, populated by astonishing life forms. It transformed my understanding of soil and land. This is an underground journey in which the reader encounters the otherworldly species that form the basis of all terrestrial life. I now officially live on a planet I hardly knew existed.”—Paul Hawken, New York Times bestselling author of Carbon

“A travelogue to a land of mystery and wonder, which just so happens to be hiding in plain view. Frank Ashwood is your guide to what happens below us, deep down in the soil, where roots and bugs and bacteria lay the foundation for the surface world, and the interconnectedness of our entire planet.”—Steve Brusatte, New York Times bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

“Revelatory. Astonishing and full of delight. This book will change forever the way you see the ground beneath your feet. Ashwood has written the definitive field guide to the world of soil and in doing so, shows just how dazzling and important this hidden world is to our survival.”—Leila Philip, New York Times bestselling author of Beaverland

“The world’s most essential habitat does not get its proper due. . . . Soil and its inhabitants are the most important ecosystems of the lot, argues Frank Ashwood, an ecologist. Without them, rainforests and savannahs would not exist.”—The Economist

“This book will make you place your feet with care, mindful for the first time of the beautiful world beneath.”—Bethany Brookshire, author of Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains

“With a perfect blend of wisdom, warmth, and wonder, Frank Ashwood champions the hidden biodiversity living underground. The World Beneath our Feet is an eye-opening primer on an extraordinary and little-known realm, one that just happens to be essential to all of us living above it.”—Thor Hanson, author of The Triumph of Seeds

“Exhilarating, revelatory and written with a delight that is as infectious as it is irresistible, The World Beneath Our Feet is a joy.”—James Bradley, author of Deep Water

“This is a thrilling and delightful book. It opens a treasure chest of fascinating insights into our most neglected ecosystem.”—George Monbiot, author of Feral

“Vital, brilliant, wholly absorbing . . . a masterpiece of science writing, and a subject that is the most important of all to our own survival.”—Isabella Tree, co-author of The Book of Wilding

“This book has massive, understated charm. I used merely to like earthworms. Now I truly admire them. Ashwood has made soil science enchanting.”—Noreen Masud, author of A Flat Place

“British soil ecologist Ashwood leads readers on a sublime, mind-altering journey down into the soil that we modern-day humans have too often taken for granted—and even desecrated. . . . It’s a race now between our unthinking destruction of our earth-sustaining soils and our ability and willingness—surely accelerated by this extraordinary account—to appreciate and reverse that damage.”—Booklist, starred review

“Illuminating.”—Publishers Weekly

“Digging into an important subject . . . In a spirited debut book that has readers rethinking what they know about a common substance, Ashwood explores soil environments around the world.”—Kirkus Reviews