In Chernobyl, following the nuclear disaster, only a handful of people returned to their dangerously irradiated homes. On an uninhabited Scottish island, feral cattle live entirely wild. This book explores the extraordinary places where humans no longer live – or survive in tiny, precarious numbers – to give us a possible glimpse of what happens when mankind’s impact on nature is forced to stop. By turns haunted and hopeful, this luminously written world study is pinned together with profound insight and new ecological discoveries that together map an answer to the big questions: what happens after we’re gone, and how far can our damage to nature be undone? SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT CONSERVATION AWARD. SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH ACADEMY BOOK PRIZE FOR GLOBAL CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING. LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE