How we think, feel, move, remember, imagine and experience the outside world and our own bodies is the domain of neuroscience. It is as old as humanity itself, yet has only been recognized as a discrete science in the past hundred years or so. This book traces its history, from Ancient Egyptian and Greek beliefs about the mind, body and soul, through the findings of Leonardo, Vesalius, Descartes and others, to the brain-imaging technologies of the present day. The story of neuroscience weaves together narratives from philosophy, religion, psychology, physics, anatomy, chemistry, pharmacology and a host of other sciences.

London, 1895, and a widowed gentleman comes calling at 221B Baker Street. Due to his preoccupation with his grief at losing his wife, Fitzhugh Woolfson's daughter Hannah has become estranged from him, and has disappeared from the family home. Woolfson begs Sherlock Holmes to find her. Holmes and Watson soon discover that Hannah has joined a religious sect known as the Elysians - led by the charismatic Sir Philip Buchanan - which conducts secretive rituals in the countryside derived from Ancient Greek myth and religion. Hannah's friend Sophia has disappeared after becoming embroiled with the Elysians, and foul play is suspected. The companions must infiltrate the mysterious cult to discover the terrifying truth.

Kenneth Clark's 1969 BBC series 'Civilisation' is perhaps the most celebrated documentary series ever made, except that it was entirely of its time: patrician to the exclusion of women and western to the exclusion of all other cultures. 2018 sees an ambitious BBC re-make, embracing global civilisations and exploring different themes in the universal histories of art and culture. In this book, Mary Beard investigates two aspects of what it means to be human. In Part I, she focuses on some of the earliest human figures in art - from the Olmec heads of pre-historic Mexico to the first nudes of the ancient Greek world, asking what were these images for, how they were understood by people in the past and why were they sometimes so dangerous and unsettling. In Part II, Beard shows how for millennia art has inspired religion as much as religion has inspired art.