Examining a thousand years of Western civilization - from the naturalism of medieval philosophy, to the artistry of the Renaissance, to the scientific and industrial revolutions, to the modern worlds of nanotechnology and viral diseases - this title offers a story of the genesis of the microcosm.
Until recently, dust and smallness coincided in the experience and thought of Western people, as they still do for many nonindustrial and rural peoples of the world. This history of the small defines this coincidence and traces the divergence of dust and smallness in the twentieth century, when dust lost its place as a fundamental condition of human life.
