The Web Beneath the Waves: The Fragile Cables that Connect our World

About the Book

What if the Internet goes dark?

We think of the Internet as wireless, weightless, ever-present-but its true foundation lies in the ocean's depths, where nearly 900,000 miles of fiber-optic cables quietly pulse with all the world's information.

In The Web Beneath the Waves, the acclaimed journalist Samanth Subramanian travels from remote Pacific islands to secretive cable-laying operations to reveal the astonishing world of undersea infrastructure. He reveals the fate of Tonga after a volcanic eruption severs its only undersea link to the Internet, meets the men and women engaged in the fiendishly complex work of laying submarine cables, and scrutinizes the acts of "grey zone warfare," in which ghost ships cut the cables of other countries.

Subramanian charts the deep geopolitical tensions, corporate power grabs, environmental risks, and quiet heroics involved in maintaining the Internet's unseen circulatory system. With his signature clarity and curiosity, he brings to life the cables that stitch continents together-and exposes just how vulnerable our connected lives really are. This is narrative nonfiction at its most urgent and eye-opening: a book that asks what happens when the world goes offline, and who controls the switch.

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’ 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.

Review :
An Economist Best Book of 2025

“Mr. Subramanian is an elegant and witty writer.... He makes of his subject a fascinating travelogue.” The Wall Street Journal

“This brief, lyrical survey of the internet’s underwater infrastructure and the people who maintain it offers a timely reminder of the extent to which the modern world depends on a fragile filigree of subsea cables—and of the many ways in which the supposedly disembodied online world is vulnerable to physical, commercial and geopolitical interference. —The Economist

“The Web Beneath the Waves is an elegant study of a hidden world.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

“A fascinating journey...Subramanian’s profiles of the people who build, repair, and maintain these deep-sea arteries offer a glimpse into an unseen and essential global community. A gripping look at the hidden infrastructure that binds the modern world—and the chaos that follows when it snaps.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Even while dwelling on the history and political intrigue surrounding the undersea cables, Subramanian deftly weaves in the tedious, physical work that goes into planning routes, laying the cables, and repairing them. He carefully traces the weeks of slow, deliberate maneuvering it takes to move a cable from a large ship to a smaller boat, where—guided by a diver—it is then taken to the shore and hooked up to a data center. Throughout the book, Subramanian shares the accounts of people who do this work, reminding readers of the very human nature of the invisible internet.” —Science Magazine

“A fascinating dive into the world of the 1.4 million kilometres of undersea cables quietly supporting the internet. From understanding how they are built to how they can be fixed—and everything in between—The Web Beneath the Waves packs a punch. As a slim book, not a single word is wasted, making for an unforgettable read that will make you think differently about the internet and how exactly it works.” —Geographical

“The Web Beneath the Waves is a fascinating offering, structured basically as a travelogue that brings history, science, Big Tech, and geopolitics together to paint a picture of a precarious present pointing at a fragile future.” —Open