About the Book

AN INCISIVE AND WIDE-RANGING COLLECTION OF ESSAYS BY ONE OF THE WORLD'S PRE-EMINENT JOURNALISTS, DRAWING TOGETHER FIFTEEN YEARS OF REPORTING AND REFLECTION INTO A VIVID PORTRAIT OF OUR TIMES.
How did twenty-year-old Indians feel about their twenty-year-old country in 1967? Why did two wealthy Sri Lankan brothers decide to become suicide bombers? When do you call a batsman 'beautiful'? Where do languages go to die? What started a spat between hand-dryer and paper towel companies? And perhaps most pertinently for this, our digital world: who controls the undersea cables that bring us the internet?
Samanth Subramanian is one of the finest journalists in the world today-his work led as much by rigour as empathy, and always by insatiable curiosity. The result is a body of work that ranges across time and terrain, criss-crossing threads of corruption and privilege, holding stories of heartbreak and hope, and offering unexpected perspectives on underreported topics (Nigerian Jews! Singaporean land reclamation! The quizzing culture in India!).
Anchored in the text of The Web Beneath the Waves, a new book billed as an Economist Best Book, this carefully curated selection brings together pieces of deep reportage and engagement written over a decade and a half. The result is a sparkling, sharp and compulsively readable book of essays, and a multifaceted view of the world in which we live.

About the Author

Samanth Subramanian writes for the New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine and The Guardian, among other publications. His last book, A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Life of J.B.S. Haldane, was one of The New York Times's Top 100 Books of 2020. His previous book, This Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan War, was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize. He lives in London.