Joseph Silk is Savilian Professor of Astronomy at the University of Oxford. He has published a number of books on cosmology for the general reader, including The Big Bang (W. H. Freeman), The Left Hand of Creation (with J. D. Barrow, published by Oxford University Press), and On the Shores of the Unknown (Cambridge University Press).

• 1. Introduction ; 2. Perspectives ; 3. Principles ; 4. Our neighbourhood ; 5. The universe of galaxies ; 6. The invisible cosmos ; 7. Supermassive black holes and the birth of galaxies ; 8. Clusters and clustering ; 9. Space is nearly flat ; 10. Dark energy and the runaway universe ; 11. The panacea of cold dark matter ; 12. Origins ; 13. The seeds of structure ; 14. Beyond the beginning ; 15. Towards the infinite universe ; 16. From time to time machines ; 17. A brief moment in time ; 18. Into the infinite future ; 19. And so to God ; 20. Where next? ; Index

Review from previous edition This book packs so much into a decidedly finite space. Silk covers everything you might hope to find in a book by one of the world's leading cosmologists, and much more besides... Accessible and informative.