When I set down to write this book, I thought for a long time about the best way to present my Idea. Should I write a layman's introduction to the Idea, or something more scholarly? Should I begin by summarizing the Idea in an essay, and see how well it was received before investing time in a book? (Can't squeeze money out of a public that doesn't care.) Footnotes or endnotes? Jocularity, sarcasm, anger, enthusiasm?

These are choices every author has to face. Thank God they're not very hard! Scholars are a small market, and they have perversely high standards of truth and relevance, so a layman's survey it is. And why would anyone want to read a whole book when they could read an essay instead? "A waste of my time", they'll say. "If he can explain his Idea in 20 pages, what does he need the other 280 for?" They'd call it filler, and they'd be right. But then how would I make money? You have to consider the supply side of this, that's Economics 101. If there was no money to be made on writing insanely diluted popular non-fiction books, because there was always a concise essay you could read instead, authors would have to do something useful for a living, and nobody would write insanely diluted popular non-fiction. And then where would we be? Where would readers who are proud enough to want to appear informed, but too lazy to read anything serious, go for their quick fix of education substitute? What would the bookstores sell? What would the magazines fill their book sections with? What about the authors' families? Their children will go hungry!

As you can see, what might appear to the naive to be a huge improvement in efficiency and clarity, would in fact be bad for everyone. What's good for greedy, ambitious and moderately informed writers is good for the public.

Footnotes or endnotes? Endnotes. Footnote makes the reader feel ripped off, they look like the author was trying to squeeze out more pages by filling the bottom half of them with names you don't care about, dates you won't remember, and titles of books you're not going to read, (and if read will often be found to contradict the author). Endnotes don't offend anyone, and they give the reader a plesant surprise when they arrive at page 270, tired but determined, 150 pages after the author began to repeat themselves, only to discover that the last 30 pages contains stuff they don't have to read. "Wow!", they'll say. "Thanks, author! I was growing tired of you, in fact just yesterday I called you a petulant, unfocused, shallow hack who barely knows more about this than I do, but now I see that you're okay!" Thanks, reader! You're welcome!

You might say that by telling you about the endnotes, I've spoiled the surprise, but that's not true. I haven't told you which page they begin on, (hint: it's not 270.) There could be 5 pages of endnotes, or 50, or 150. They could begin any moment! Read on!

Tone and style? There are many to select from. Some can be ruled out beforehand, because they require talent. I don't have the experience to fake the lucid, laid-back style of a world-class intellectual authority. I'm not old enough to pretend that I've been to all the world's worst hell-holes, gone binge drinking with world leaders, and inspired significant breakthroughs in science and technology. Then again, you readers might be easier to fool than I give you credit for. A few references to the bodies I've seen rotting in the streets of Mogadishu, a digression about the time I suggested the need for a global hypertext document system to Tim Berners-Lee, and a note about Boris Jeltsin's favourite brand of vodka, and you might think I'm the real thing! Wow! You're so stupid! Ahem. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to write that. What I meant to say was that I'll play it safe this time, and then maybe for my next book I'll try to give the impression that I wrote it during a drug orgy in a hotel room in Sadr City.

There's no better friend to the risk-averse non-fiction author than the anecdote. This book is full of them. I'm not saying that it only contains anecdotes, far from it. I mean only that whenever I found myself stuck, or my knowledge of the subject was lacking, or I needed to splice together unrelated segments into something resembling a "chapter", I dropped in an anecdote or two. Or three. Also whenever I wanted you to agree with me but suspected you're too dumb to understand a straightforward explanation. And whenever I felt that a dash of sympathy-based identification with a historic figure (wow! they were just like you and I!) would be better appreciated than page after page of dry theory. Which I often felt.

Okay, so there's not much substance in this book. And some of the anecdotes are overly sentimental. You didn't need to know about the embarassing disabilities, the tragic losses, the adversities faced, and finally the painful deaths of all the thinkers I want you to admire, but you don't always get what you need - sometimes, or even usually, you get what you want. Trust me, you want anecdotes. I know you think you're reading this book to "learn", but just trust me on this. When you close this book, you will feel that you've learned something. This is a good feeling, and a lasting one, provided that you don't examine your supposed new knowledge too closely. Imagine how you would have felt if I'd written you a book full of profound ideas, relevant facts, and complex theories! You'd have felt really dumb! I know I do, when I read books of that sort.

So what is this great Idea of mine, that this book will introduce you to? You'll have to read the rest of the book to find out. And don't think I'll give it up easily! First you'll have to wade through a pointless survey of just about every person I could find in antiquity who in some way anticipated my Idea, (complete with disabilities, losses, adversities, deaths, etc.) Then I'll use examples from the history of modern science and philosophy to give an illusion of gradual progress towards the perfection of my Idea, (and here you are now, reading about it!) Finally I'll introduce you to a number of brilliant people whose work today I'll claim confirms my Idea. I'll present a dumbed-down version of their radical theories and uncomfirmed findings in a tone of breathless enthusiasm that is sure to inspire you to pretend you could have been that brilliant too.

Gradually, in between the anecdotes, my Idea will be revealed. I could probably summarize it for you in a paragraph, but then it wouldn't look so smart. In fact it's not much of an "idea", but more of a perspective. A certain way of looking at the world that emphasizes certain patterns in a way that makes them seem significant. Change the perspective, and the pattern disappears, (so don't do that.)

It may seem a stretch of me to imply that the whole of Western Civilization stands and falls on my Idea, which I will, repeatedly. Didn't you just read some other book that made the same claim about another idea? Well, exactly! An author needs a niche. You wouldn't want me to step on the turf of my colleagues, would you? There's a word for stealing the Western Civ linchpins of other authors: plagiarism.

Besides, if you wanted a balanced, authoritative survey of the field, there are other books you could read. Clearly, as you're reading mine instead, you didn't want that. You had the choice between an honest and informed introduction that springs out of the gradual accumulation of thought and research among competent scientists and thinkers, and an easily-read book with a striking title that promises to tell you something Radically New and Very Important in a fun and informal way. Who am I to deny you that choice?

You'll notice that I've taken every opportunity to paint anyone who disagrees with me as evil, stupid, and ridiculous. I'm particularly proud of these parts. If they're even half as fun to read as they were to write, you're going to have a great time! Just wait until you see who I call a "senile has-been who couldn't research his way to the grocery store" on page 47, who I call an "arrogant drunk whose rants are as entertaining to the educated reader as they are embarassing to himself" on page 91, and who I call "the greatest source of chatterati flatulence writing for a major newspaper today" on page 180!

Whenever I enter a bookstore, with their row upon row upon row of books, thousands, tens of thousands of them, I've always been struck by a sense of optimism for humanity. To think that after all these centuries of scientific and philosophical progress, after so many great thoughts have been put on paper, it is still possible for the barely competent hack to make a living churning out uneducated drivel. It gives me hope that maybe I, too, can take my place among them, if only for a short time. I know I haven't written a classic. I know that this book will be forgotten in a year. You no more want to read a classic than I'm able to write one. And that's the beauty of the modern publishing business. So let us turn the page together, and walk hand-in-hand through the ritual of education substitute.