Why can it sometimes feel as though half the population is living in a moral universe? Why do ideas such as 'fairness' and 'freedom' mean such different things to different people? Why is it so hard to see things from another viewpoint? Why do we come to blows over politics and religion? This book answers these questions about human relationships.

An exploration of the author's parents' lives, his mother's inexplicable suicide in her late fifties and his own bouts of depression. It conjures up the pebble-dashed home of his childhood and the landscape of postwar suburban England. It tells a story of grief, loss and dislocation, yet also of the power of memory and the bonds of family love.

Dissects the sterile distinction between 'sciences' and 'humanities' to bring to life the whole history of cosmology from the Babylonians to Newton. The author shows how the tragic split between science and religion arose and how the modern world-view replaced the medieval world-view in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century.