Starborn: How the Stars Made Us – and Who We Would Be Without Them

Imagine how different our world would be if our ancestors had looked up and there were no stars . . .



For tens of thousands of years, the stars were our constant companions. One of our species’ most enduring and universal relationships has been with the night sky itself, yet in the glow of today’s artificial lighting, we have forgotten this intimacy with the cosmos.



Stargazing has shaped the course of human civilization. The rhythm of our ancestors’ lives revolved around the stars, from cycles of agriculture to patterns of birth. Origin myths made the Sun into a life-giving creator and the Milky Way a gateway for departed souls. The motion of celestial bodies sustained the illusion that the Earth was at the centre of the cosmos – until looking at them more closely sparked the Scientific Revolution. Across the ages stars have served as clocks, maps, compasses, muses, and gods, defining our laws of reality and our dreams of the sublime.



Leading cosmologist Roberto Trotta imagines a world without stars, a dramatic alternate history in which we wouldn’t understand gravity, couldn’t navigate or have much sense of time, and where our sense of the profound was altered beyond recognition.



Starborn will change how you think of the night sky forever.

Format: Paperback
Pages: 352
Imprint: Basic Books
Publication date: 09/11/2023