Supernumerary Fellow Professor Charles Foster publishes latest book The Edges of the World

Supernumerary Fellow at Exeter College, Professor Charles Foster has published his latest book, The Edges of the World: At the Margins of Life, Lands and History, released January 2026 by Penguin. 

In The Edges of the World, Professor Foster turns his attention to the margins — geographical, cultural, and intellectual — arguing that it is at these edges that human creativity, belief, and meaning are most powerfully formed. Drawing on journeys across Europe, the Middle East and beyond, the book ranges from prehistoric migration routes and ancient religious sites to modern landscapes shaped by exclusion and extremity. Through these encounters, it explores why humans are drawn to boundaries, how societies define what lies at the centre and the periphery, and what these distinctions reveal about how we live, mourn, celebrate, and imagine our place in the world. 

The book blends history, philosophy, anthropology and travel writing, continuing Professor Foster’s distinctive interdisciplinary approach. Known for crossing conventional academic boundaries, he uses personal experience alongside scholarly insight to examine how marginal places and ideas have shaped both individual lives and collective histories. 

This work connects closely to Professor Foster’s wider research interests. A Supernumerary Fellow at Exeter College since 2022, he is also a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law and a Senior Research Associate at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. His research frequently engages with questions of identity, morality and the relationship between humans, animals, and the natural world. 

The Edges of the World is available from Blackwells and other major booksellers.