"William Shakespeare lived at a remarkable time--a period we now recognize as the first phase of the Scientific Revolution. New ideas were transforming Western thought, the medieval was giving way to the modern, and the work of a few key figures hinted at the brave new world to come: The methodical and rational Galileo, the skeptical Montaigne, and--as Falk convincingly argues--Shakespeare, who observed human nature just as intently as the astronomers...

A study of the scientist in Western culture, from medieval images of alchemists to present-day depictions of cyberpunks and genetic engineers. They were mad, of course. Or, evil. O,r godless, amoral, arrogant, impersonal, and inhuman. At best, they were well intentioned but blind to the dangers of forces they barely controlled. They were Faust, Frankenstein, Jekyll, Moreau, Caligari, Strangelove, the scientists of film and fiction, cultural archetypes...

Scientist Edward O. Wilson and poet Robert Hass explore the many ways that poetry and science enhance each other, discussing the heights and depths of human potential.

"Discusses the works of Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Lucian, H.G. Wells, John W. Campbell, and others from Victorian times to the present." --

A late 20th-century kabala, a labyrinth of literary secrets that will lure the uninitiated into rethinking everything they know about books and writing. The definitive encyclopedia of contemporary word-magic.