'This is an audacious book ... [Martin's] proposition is a compelling one. Although his book is organized chronologically, it is actually a brilliant critical demonstration of the impossibility of solidly based history, of fact, of "truth". A gifted interpreter, Martin is also learned, precise and wonderfully sensitive to the divagations as well as the inherent craziness of the authors he has rightly chosen to highlight. Martin's criticism expresses, as forcefully and brilliantly as can be done, a reticence not just about history and language, but about any direction or coherency at all. In many ways Martin is radically digressive, Shandyan, oblique.' Edward Said, The Times Literary Supplement

• General editors preface; Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. Beginning; 2. Nescience and omniscience; 3. The occidental orient; 4. The scientific fictions of Jules Verne; 5. End; Notes; Translations; Bibliography; Index.

'This is an audacious book ... [Martin's] proposition is a compelling one. Although his book is organized chronologically, it is actually a brilliant critical demonstration of the impossibility of solidly based history, of fact, of "truth". A gifted interpreter, Martin is also learned, precise and wonderfully sensitive to the divagations as well as the inherent craziness of the authors he has rightly chosen to highlight. Martin's criticism expresses, as forcefully and brilliantly as can be done, a reticence not just about history and language, but about any direction or coherency at all. In many ways Martin is radically digressive, Shandyan, oblique.' Edward Said, The Times Literary Supplement

• General editors preface; Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. Beginning; 2. Nescience and omniscience; 3. The occidental orient; 4. The scientific fictions of Jules Verne; 5. End; Notes; Translations; Bibliography; Index.

'This is an audacious book ... [Martin's] proposition is a compelling one. Although his book is organized chronologically, it is actually a brilliant critical demonstration of the impossibility of solidly based history, of fact, of "truth". A gifted interpreter, Martin is also learned, precise and wonderfully sensitive to the divagations as well as the inherent craziness of the authors he has rightly chosen to highlight. Martin's criticism expresses, as forcefully and brilliantly as can be done, a reticence not just about history and language, but about any direction or coherency at all. In many ways Martin is radically digressive, Shandyan, oblique.' Edward Said, The Times Literary Supplement

• General editors preface; Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. Beginning; 2. Nescience and omniscience; 3. The occidental orient; 4. The scientific fictions of Jules Verne; 5. End; Notes; Translations; Bibliography; Index.