Mermaids

Axel Müller is Professor in Mineralogy and Petrology at the Natural History Museum of the University of Oslo in Norway. He has a strong interdisciplinary geoscience career and teaches economic geology. The late Christopher Halls was awarded a PhD in Geology in 1969 from University College London. He worked as a geologist in Canada and then as a lecturer at Imperial College, London. Following retirement he became a Scientific Associate of the Natural History Museum. Ben Williamson is an Associate Professor in Applied Mineralogy at University of Exeter. His research has focused on the nature and origin of granites and associated mineralisation, and the environmental impacts of mining. He is also dedicated to teaching and inspiring the next generation of geologists.

The authors have written a wonderfully in-depth (pun intended) book about virtually every aspect of merpeople. There is as much information as most people could ever wish for about the subject.

• Preface Memorial note 1 Introduction: Why mermaids? 2 Mermaids conceived: hybrid goddesses and beasts in antiquity 3 Christian adaptations in the Romanesque to Baroque eras 4 Mermaid passions: obsessive fixation in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century art 5 Mermaids everywhere: postwar commercialization and trivialization 6 Mermaids rationalized: evolutionary theory confronts the fantastic References Acknowledgements Index