A first-class study of British attitudes to death and dying from the Middle Ages to the 20th century... A fascinating work of social history that is both scholarly and accessible to general readers

Watkins has a gift for conveying a feeling of place, and is good at conjuring up the dead, lifting the veil so that we can have a peek into the grave and beyond

Outstanding ... This may be a book about death but, paradoxically, it is one filled with intelligence and life

Superbly written, shows how the meaning of life is still everywhere connected to what it means to die

A sensitive and fascinating history of an "undiscovered country" which, in many ways, mirrors the story of Britain

Watkins is one of those rare guides who never overstays his welcome. He wears his research lightly as he journeys around the British landscape, teasing out themes and cultural shifts from the particulars of individual lives

This is a wonderful book: curious, insightful and beautifully written

This is a wonderful book: curious, insightful and beautifully written. It has something of the qualities of James Fraser’s The Golden Bough about it – a discovery of life that is not concerned with day-to-day existence but deeper symbolism and meaning. I love the details, from medieval stories of walking spirits to Age-of-Reason sceptics, bodysnatchers and ceremonies of the dead. All in all, it is a walk along the shoreline of death over the centuries, watching the tides of belief change, and hearing the waves of imagination, superstition and wonderment crash on the reality of our lives.

A scholarly but compelling meditation on the nature of death and dying. Persuasive, humane and beautifully written, Watkins writes like a latter day Thomas Browne - this is Urn Burial for the 21st century. Watkins wears his learning lightly as he conducts us through the nether regions of the underworld. Highly recommended.

From lost medieval souls to the rattling tables of nineteenth-century spiritualism, The Undiscovered Country is an evocative journey through a landscape of superstition, belief and doubt. It is also a brilliantly perceptive exploration of how our desire to connect with the departed, and with the idea of death itself, shapes who we are. Carl Watkins is a gifted historian and a masterful storyteller - and this is a marvellous book.

Watkins does several things particularly well. He tells a good story, or a string of them spanning the centuries. He makes locations accessible with some very vivid writing about place. But above all, he is good at summoning the spirits of the long gone and mostly unillustrious

Abounds with details…conveyed by way of wonderful stories that, taken together, amount not just to a remarkable and engaging history of our beliefs about death, but to a deeply affecting chapter in the history of bereavement

Watkins draws on a wide range of books, monuments and anecdotes, some relatively well know – such as the Phantom Drummer of Tedworth and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier – others far less familiar… Fascinating

An impressive tapestry of social history

A fine work of literature, dealing with a complexity of issues in an accessible and enjoyable form

A well-researched book on our unusual relationship with the idea of the dead and death

A memoir that is funny and modest, absorbing and playful. Dawkins has written a marvellous love letter to science… and for this, the book will touch scientists and science-loving persons. … an enchanting memoir to read, one that I recommend highly.

Dawkins’ style [is] clear and elegant as usual… a personal introduction to an important thinker and populariser of science. … provide[s] a superb background to the academic and social climate of postwar British research.

The Richard Dawkins that emerges here is a far cry from the strident, abrasive caricature beloved of lazy journalists … There is no score-settling, but a generous appreciation and admiration of the qualities of others, as well as a transparent love of life, literature - and science.

[Here] we have the kindling of Mr. Dawkins’s curiosity, the basis for his unconventionality.

This memoir is destined to be a historical document that will be ceaselessly quoted.

Surprisingly intimate and moving. … He is here to find out what makes us tick: to cut through the nonsense to the real stuff.

This first volume of Dawkins's autobiography … comes to life when describing the competitive collaboration and excitement among the outstanding ethologists and zoologists at Oxford in the Seventies—which stimulated his most famous book, The Selfish Gene.

…this isn’t Dawkins’s version of My Family and Other Animals. It’s the beauty of ideas that arouses his appetite for wonder: and, more especially, his relentless drive … towards the answer.

Enjoyable from start to finish, this exceptionally accessible book will appeal to science lovers, lovers of autobiographies-and, of course, all of Dawkins's fans, atheists and theists alike.

‘Full of wit, insights and anecdotes, well written and read by the author... an interesting look at the making of a famous (or infamous) thinker.’