{"product_id":"vanished-an-unnatural-history-of-extinction-1","title":"Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFrom an award-winning historian of race, science and empire, a path-breaking and poignant history of extinction as a scientific idea, an imperial legacy and a political choiceAnyone alive today is among a tiny fraction of the once living: over 90% of species that ever existed are now extinct. How did we come to think of ourselves as survivors in a world where species can vanish forever, or as capable of pushing our planet to the verge of a sixth mass extinction?Extinction, Sadiah Qureshi shows us, is a surprisingly modern concept – and a phenomenon that’s not as natural as we might think. In Europe until the late eighteenth century, species were considered perfect and unchanging creations of God.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen in the age of revolutions, scientists gathered enough fossil evidence to determine that mammoth bones, for example, were not just large elephants but a lost species that once roamed the Earth alongside ancient humans. Extinction went from being regarded as theologically dangerous to pervasive, and even inevitable. Yet Vanished shows us that extinction is more than a scientific idea; it’s a political choice that has led to devasting consequences.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEuropeans and Americans quickly used the notion that extinction was a natural process to justify persecution and genocide, predicting that nations from Newfoundland’s Beothuk to Aboriginal Australians were doomed to die out from imperial expansion. Exploring the tangled and unnatural histories of extinction and empire, Vanished weaves together pioneering original research and breath-taking storytelling to show us extinction is both an evolutionary process and a human act: one which illuminates our past, and may alter our future.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003eFormat: Paperback\u003cbr\u003ePublished: 2026\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: Penguin Books Ltd\u003cbr\u003ePages: 496\u003cbr\u003eLanguage: English\u003cbr\u003eISBN 10: 0141988568\u003cbr\u003eISBN 13: 9780141988566\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sadiah Qureshi","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53835728257290,"sku":null,"price":20.95,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0282\/6066\/3399\/files\/Screenshot2026-09-30at12.20.14.png?v=1790763629","url":"https:\/\/www.shakespeareandsons.com\/products\/vanished-an-unnatural-history-of-extinction-1","provider":"Shakespeare \u0026 Sons Buchhandel GmbH","version":"1.0","type":"link"}