The obstacles to discovery - the illusions of knowledge -are also part of the story. Boorstin captures the illusions about the past - the earth before Columbus and Balboa, Magellan and Captain Cook, about the heavens before Copernicus and Galileo, about the human body before Paracelsus and Harvey, plants before Linnaeus, the past before Petrarch, wealth before Adam Smith, the physical world before Newton, Dalton, Faraday and Einstein. He asks unfamiliar questions: Why didn't the Chinese 'discover' Europe or America? Why did people take so long to learn that the earth goes around the sun? All In one great chronological extravaganza. 'A ravishing book...with a verve, an audacity and a grasp of every sort of knowledge that is outrageous and wonderful...I can't think of any other living writer who could have attempted, let alone accomplished it' Alistair Cooke. 'An adventure story...great good fun to read' New York Times Book Review. 'A grand and exhilarating voyage, a bold attempt to circumnavigate the intellectual globe' The Philadelphia Inquirer.