Carl Sagan (1934-1967) was professor at Cornell University and he was the director of the Planatological Laboratory of the Univerity and the president of the Society of Planetology as well.

This work of Sagan about the "demon-haunted world" is the most personal and most emotional book ever written by him. His experiences go back to his childhood and he is able to demonstrate with several stories and examples how science can cut through the shell of preconceptions and hysterics to arrive to the truth. The reality is often rather surprising.

He doesn't agree with the arguments which emphasize that science would demolish the spiritual world or that it wouldn't be more than a sort of second system of religion. He puts the question: why people do attack scientific research? He also examines the danger of misusing scientific results and provides some help to filter out these dangerous thoughts through different examples of political, social and religious subjects.

This book has two contradictory facets, being provocative and elevating at the same time. This is the kind of book people talk about nowadays.

We are convinced that the intellectuals should read it in Hungarian as well.