'Unprecedented gas prices, heat waves and droughts, climate change, Solyndra - all make 'alternative' sources of energy contemporary areas of activism, controversy, lobbying, and legislation.
Yet few know that the ancient Chinese, Greeks, and Romans usedsolar energy in their architecture; that Galileo and da Vinci both planned uses for the power of the sun; and that by 1918, there
were more than 4,000 solar water heaters in California. The history of solar architecture and energy technologies gives readers an epiphany-producing sense of its future. Detailing a realistic
alternative to fossil fuels, in illustrations the New York Times called 'especially fine,' and prose Library Journal termed 'highly readable,' Let It Shine shows that there is nothing - and
plenty - new under the sun'--
