Throughout history artists, writers and musicians - 'creative' people - have tried to outdo God or the Gods in the acts of creation. This study traces the different concepts of creation in Western civilization, following the struggle between man and god for the right to create, and even the right to create gods.

Throughout history artists, writers and musicians - 'creative' people - have tried to outdo God or the Gods in the acts of creation. This extraordinarily wide-ranging study traces the different concepts of creation in Western civilization, following the struggle between man and god for the right to create, and even the right to create gods. Along the way, it becomes what is in essence a new history of Western civilization, a series of thirty-three chapters brimming with ideas, insights and erudition. It touches upon religion, art and artistry, alchemy, mystical traditions, opera, film, literature, linguistics, psychoanalysis, psychology and physics, among many other things, exploring what it means to create, as well as the popular myths of creation from every conceivable angle.

Introduction
1. Meetings with the Maker
2. In the Beginnings
3. Out of the Chasm
4. Cubing the Egg
5. In Verbo
6. The Supreme Artisan
7. Another God
8. The Great Work
9. Our Own Unmaking
10. Author of Himself
11. To Create More Worlds
12. Uncreating Words
13. Nature Caught in the Act
14. Jehovah, Jupiter, Fu and Brahma
15. Sky Stories
16. Protoplasts
17. The God of Steam
18. Go Forth and Multiply
19. Pangenesis
20. New Eve, Old Adam
21. Begetter and Bearer
22. Deicide
23. Out of the Canyon
24. The First Artists
25. Prime Movers
26. Creatures of Prometheus
27. God's Finger, Man's Hand
28. Let There Be Sound
29. Sons of Chaos
30. Psychogenesis
31. Creating the Creation
32. World-Building
33. The Bright Destroyer.