For James Burke, knowledge is a vast interconnected web - which means you never know how a new discovery or development, or even a chance accident, will affect everything else. To prove his point, he takes us on twenty exhilarating, all-new journeys through history's byways and shortcuts - from the zigzag path that starts with medieval spicy food and ends with smart bombs to the road that connects bottle caps with the Bowie Knife. Through these and hundreds of other fascinating examples - further linked by 447 cross references - Burke proves once more that he has 'one of the most intriguing minds in the Western world' - WASHINGTON POST.