A Wonderful Journey into the Insect World through Literature, Science, Art, and Popular Culture Aristotle on metamorphosis * Alfred Russel Wallace on the rare butterflies of the Malay Archipelago * Jean-Henri Fabre on the art of the dung beetle * Dave Barry on naming the U.S. Official National Insect * Charles Darwin on seagoing insects * William Beebe on an army ant invasion * Kevin Kelly on bee and human swarming * Jonathan Schell on postnuclear insect survival * Gary Larson on when insects take over * May Berenbaum on maggots and murderers * Henry David Thoreau on race wars among the ants * Thomas Eisner on stealth bugs * David George Gordon on appreciating the lowly cockroach * Maurice Maeterlinck on the queen-bee s wedding * Edward O. Wilson on insect societies plus many other essays, illustrations, cartoons, screenplays, poems, recipes, tales, and observations on insect life.

Explores hundreds of the often strange beliefs flourishing in New Age America, including crystals, alternative medicines, and spontaneous human combustion, and discusses the validity of these beliefs