Book excerpt: This is the first in a planned series of volumes on science and literature, which grow from three basic assumptions explicit in this first volume: first, that science and literaure are two alternative but related expressions of a culture's values and beliefs; and second, that understanding science in its relation to culture and literature requires some understanding not only of its own internal processes, but of pressures exercised by social, political, and psychological forces; third, that the idea of "influence" of one upon the other must work both ways. It is not only science that influences literature, but literature that influences science the authors say. ISBN 0-299-11300-0: $45.00; ISBN 0-299-11304-3 (pbk.): $12.95.