Book of the Week - Chasing the Sun - Episode 2

"Once upon a time we thought that we were the centre of the universe and that even the sun revolved around us... Thousands of years later we know that our earliest, most basic idea about our place in the cosmos was false, and that that cosmos is vastly larger than we ever dreamed. We are mere specks..." Richard Cohen took eight years to write his account of the sun. The sun's biography, in fact. He looks at the myth, the legend, the science. Also the social context and how the sun figures in various art forms. And, will it be with us for ever? We have to hope so. His celebration of that gold disc in the sky is now caught in five epsiodes... 2. How has the sun cast its influence in such diverse activies as warfare and holiday-making? Reader Allan Corduner.