This book offers an intimate guide to the Milky Way, taking readers on a grand tour of our home Galaxy's structure, genesis, and evolution, based on the latest astronomical findings. In engaging language, it tells how the Milky Way congealed from blobs of gas and dark matter into a spinning starry abode brimming with diverse planetary systems--some

"Clearly written, splendidly up-to-date, and full of delightful analogies, this book is the natural heir to Bok's The Milky Way. It explores and explains our Galaxy in a way accessible to all readers and will excite anyone who craves an adventure of the mind and imagination."--Andrew Fraknoi, professor of astronomy, Foothill College

"The Milky Way takes readers on a nontechnical journey through our Galaxy, and strikes a nice balance between the personal, the poetic, and the educational--it also moves at a good pace. Waller communicates the true wonder of nature, but he is also quite thorough and deep in his coverage of the latest science."--Mark Whittle, University of Virginia

"Waller presents a careful overview of the structure of the Milky Way Galaxy, with informative asides into the history of astronomy, galaxy formation and evolution, and more recent observations. There is much of value here."--Gerry Gilmore, University of Cambridge

"This book is superb: written in an engaging, even folksy, style, it would be the perfect primer for a beginning undergraduate wanting an up-to-date overview of stellar and galactic astronomy."---David Stickland, Journal of Continuity and Change