The Grand Contraption tells the story of humanity's attempts through 4,000 years of written history to make sense of the world in its cosmic totality, to understand its physical nature, and to know its real and imagined inhabitants. No other book has provided as coherent, compelling, and learned a narrative on this subject of subjects. David Park takes us on a journey that illuminates the multitude of elaborate "contraptions" by which humans in the Western world have imagined the earth they inhabit - and what lies beyond. Intertwining history, religion, philosophy, literature, and the physical sciences, this book is, ultimately, about the "grand contraption" we've constructed through the ages.