'… has been explored by other writers before Chua, but he gives it an extra twist by setting it in the larger and longer story of Western civilisation's 'disenchantment'.' BBC Music Magazine

• List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; On the preface; Part I. The Garden of Eden: 1. On history; 2. On modernity; 3. On disenchantment; 4. On division; 5. On opera; 6. On machines; 7. On space; 8. On style; Part II. The Fruit of Knowledge: 9. On being; 10. On the mind; 11. On biology; 12. On the body; 13. On the soul; 14. On morality; 15. On women; 16. On masculinity; 17. On independence; 18. On heroes; 19. On politics; 20. On nothing; 21. On God; 22. On infinity; 23. On self-deification; 24. On invisibility; 25. On conscious life-forms; 26. On artificiality; Part III. The Tower of Babel: 27. On death; 28. On absolute music; 29. On the beautiful and the sublime; 30. On monuments; 31. On the apocalypse; 32. On the end; 33. On suicide; 34. On absolute drivel; 35. On Babel; Bibliography; Index.