This is an accessible, non-mathematical guide to all the central issues of cosmology, taking the reader through recent breakthroughs, hypotheses and arguments: the inflationary universe immediately subsequent to the Big Bang; quantum cosmology and Hartle and Hawking's wave-function of the universe; the discovery and significance of large-scale galactic structure; the evolution of the universe(s) and the many-worlds hypothesis of parallel universes; the various anthropic principles; the controversies over the Big Bang and the discovery of the ripples in the microwave background radiatioon; the issues of the existence of other intelligent life-forms; and the possibility of the evidence of life on Mars.