About 13.8 billion years ago, the entire cosmos consisted of a tiny, hot, dense ball of energy that suddenly exploded. That’s how everything began, according to the standard scientific story of the Big Bang, a theory that first took shape in the 1920s.
Publishing, even among culture industries, is notoriously sleepy as a capitalist enterprise. Many enter the field—and take spiritual compensation in lieu of higher pay, shaping employee demographics—because they love literature.