While the story of the big has often been told, the story of the small has not yet even been outlined. This text provides a history of the small and the invisible, meditating on how dust has been experienced and the small has been imagined across the ages. 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 - the book offers a story of the genesis of the microcosm.

Author Biography

Joseph A. Amato is Dean of Rural and Regional Studies at Southwest State University in Marshall, Minnesota. Some of his most recent titles include Golf Beats Us All (So We Love It) (1997); The Decline of Rural Minnesota (1993); The Great Jerusalem Artichoke Circus: The Buying and Selling of the American Rural Dream (1993); and Victims and Values: A History and Theory of Suffering (1990).