Unprecedented gas prices, heat waves and droughts, climate change, Solyndra all make alternative sources of energy contemporary areas of activism, controversy, lobbying, and legislation. Yet few know that the ancient Chinese, Greeks, and Romans used solar energy in their architecture; that Galileo and da Vinci both planned uses for the power of the sun; and that by 1918, there were more than 4000 solar water heaters in California. The history of solar architecture and energy technologies gives readers an epiphany-producing sense of its future. Detailing a realistic alternative to fossil fuels, in illustrations the New York Times called especially fine, and prose Library Journal termed highly readable, Let it Shine shows that there is nothing and plenty new under the sun.