Let it shine: the 6,000-year story of solar energy

Unprecedented gas prices, heat waves and droughts, climate change, Solyndra -- all make "alternative" sources of energy contemporary areas of activism, controversy, lobbying, and legislation. Yet few know that the ancient Chinese, Greeks, and Romans used solar energy in their architecture; that Galileo and da Vinci both planned uses for the power of the sun; and that by 1918, there were more than 4,000 solar water heaters in California. The history of solar architecture and energy technologies gives readers an epiphany-producing sense of its future. Detailing a realistic alternative to fossil fuels, in illustrations the New York Times called "especially fine" and prose Library Journal termed "highly readable," Let It Shine shows that there is nothing -- and plenty -- new under the sun.