Author Description

On the Edge of Eternity overturns the paradigm of the eighteenth-century discovery of geological time, showing that the antiquity of our planet was a widespread and culturally acceptable notion in pre-1800 Europe. In this groundbreaking study, Ivano Dal Prete brings to life a long-forgotten world, in which the biblical story of the Creation and of the Flood was only one among many doctrines that could be freely taught and discussed. University scholars and students, artists like Leonardo da Vinci, and the readers of easily accessible vernacular books, envisaged, painted, and debated an ageless Earth scarred by innumerable deluges, raised and submerged continents, annihilated and resurgent humanities. Rather than discover deep time, the eighteenth century erased its rich and complex history, replacing it with a simplistic account that suited its political agendas and still informs our culture. On the Edge of Eternity invites the reader to revisit engrained beliefs on the relationship of science and religion, the history of the Earth sciences, and the cultural assumptions that have underpinned the modern controversy on Young Earth creationism.