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Global Undergrounds: Exploring cities within

Research output: Book/Report/ProceedingsBook

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Publication date1/06/2016
Place of PublicationLondon
PublisherReaktion Books
Number of pages320
ISBN (print)9781780235769
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Bibliographic note

The book (320p., 86 ill.) is the first global survey of its kind, investigating 81 man-made underground spaces in every continent, including Antarctica. It has been translated into Chinese (complex and simplified); was book of the month (July 2017) in the prestigious Civil Engineer Blog by the Institution of Civil Engineers; and has been endorsed by Robert MacFarlane (The Guardian) as a ‘bunker Baedeker’ opening ‘a new vision of the city to us.’ As co-editor, I commissioned, edited and shaped the structure of the book in equal part with my co-editors. We also co-authored the Introduction: 9,000 words split between the main Introduction and shorter introductions to the book’s 13 sections. My single authored contributions (9 pieces c.1000-1200 words each, totalling c.10,000 words) draw on archival research, relevant secondary literature as well as fieldwork and site visits. The pieces from China, namely Xi’an, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, were written during a visiting fellowship to the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (May-September 2014) funded by the Urban Knowledge Network Asia, a Marie Curie Action International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (EU Framework 7). The piece on the 10,000-year clock expands upon past research conducted during the AHRC-funded project ‘Pumping Time: Geographies of Temporal Infrastructure in Fin-de-Siècle Paris’, in particular primary sources from French specialist publications (1870-1940) on technology and science and horology. Also underpinning the piece are a site visit to the Science Museum in London and an interview with David Rooney, former Keeper of Technologies and Engineering in the Museum. The remaining pieces (Istanbul, Zipaquirá, Delhi, the Mexico-USA border and Dubai) draw on a combination of site visits, primary sources (in English, French and Spanish) and recent scholarship related to each of the sites and themes with which they engage.