In this captivating set of philosophical meditations on the relationship between the viewer and the viewed, F. González-Crussi contrasts historical events and cultural lore with reflections on technology and medicine to produce a complete vision of vision. From Actaeon spying on the goddess Diana, to a pair of voyeurs in revolutionary France who unwittingly incited a massacre, to modernday advances in photography and microscopy, González- Crussi probes the ways in which the sense of sight connects the perceiver with the perceived. As a Professor Emeritus of pathology at Northwestern Medical School, he brings medical as well as literary knowledge to bear on each kind or facet of seeing. Anecdotes from his experiences as a physician, such as the extraordinary number of people who want to witness an autopsy, shed light on the human passion for sight.

Elegantly written and replete with stunning images, this book provides the kind of deep, slow, cultivated reading pleasure that González-Crussi employed to such effect in On Being Born and Other Difficulties.

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