EDITH W. HETHERINGTON has a PhD degree in Curriculum and Instruction, and has taught English and English as a second language at several schools, including Razi University in Iran. More recently, she was admitted to the California Bar, and now is the Export Compliance Officer for Chevron Information Technology Company. She has traveled widely in North America, Europe, and the Middle East, and has a first hand acquaintanceship with many of the places mentioned in this book as well as their art and literature.

NORRISS S. HETHERINGTON is the director of the Institute for the History of Astronomy and a Visiting Scholar with the Office for the History of Science and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of several books, including Planetary Motions: A Historical Perspective (Greenwood Guides to Great Ideas in Science, 2006). He was a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow in Studies in Interrelationships between Human Values and Science and Technology.