The Confusion

High above, on one of the ancient towers, he could see a gentleman who had gone up there for a stroll, perhaps to get some fresh air and clear his head after too long spent down in the broiling Mint. This fellow stopped on the parapet to look out over the river, silhouetted against the burning cloud behind him, and a sea-breeze caught his long hair and blew it back like a banner. Jack could see that the man’s hair was snow-white.

“That must be him, then,” he said to no one, “him that was put in charge of the Mint.” Raising his voice a bit he said, “Enjoy your perch up there, Mister Newton, because Jack the Coiner has come back to London-town, and he aims to knock you down; the game has begun, and may the best man win!”

About the Author

NEAL STEPHENSON issueth from a Clan of yeomen, itinerant Parsons, ingenieurs, and Natural Philosophers that hath long dwelt in bucolick marches and rural Shires of his native Land, and trod the Corridors of her ’Varsities. At a young age, finding himself in a pretty Humour for the writing of Romances, and the discourse of Natural Philosophy and Technologick Arts, he took up the Pen, and hath not since laid it down.

Credits

Jacket design by Richard L. Aquan

Jacket illustration: 1746 plan of Versailles/Historic Urban Plans, Inc.

Also by

Neal Stephenson

Quicksilver

Cryptonomicon

The Diamond Age

Snow Crash

Zodiac

The epigraph on page 292 is from The Leibniz-Arnauld Correspondence, edited and translated by H. T. Mason. Published by Manchester University Press, Manchester, England, 1967.

The epigraph on page 646 is from Robert Merrihew Adams, Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist. Published by Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 1994.

The epigraph on page 707 is from G. W. Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, edited and translated by Roger Ariew and Daniel Hackett. Published by Hackett, Indianapolis, 1989.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE CONFUSION. Copyright © 2004 by Neal Stephenson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of PerfectBound™.

PerfectBound™ and the PerfectBound™ logo are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Microsoft Reader April 2004 eISBN 0-06-075119-3

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