It's not until page 240 of this elegant hardback that author Joseph Silk, whose day job is Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford University, tells the reader that "this is a golden age for cosmology". He argues that, having observed and collated and interpreted the data as well as we can from our terrestrial home, it's time to conquer the tyranny of interstellar distance and see if our models of space have any merit.

The book is subtitled "A Short History of the Universe", but the history plays less of a role than explanations of the theories currently in vogue about the origins and development of the cosmos.

The first three chapters of the book's dozen deal with some essential physical concepts: interstellar distances, black-body radiation, the Doppler effect - and introduce leading physicists and astronomers - Albert Einstein and Edwin Hubble among them.

And then we're away, using the Big Bang as our starting point (the steady-state universe is dealt with in an earlier chapter), and then working through the fundamental forces (electromagnetic, weak and strong nuclear, gravitational), the materials of the universe and, ultimately, its structure and what its future may be.

More questions are posed than answers given. It quickly becomes clear that there are riddles about the nature of the universe still to be solved, many of them concerning the elusive dark matter. But what emerges is a kind of cosmic balance sheet, noting what humanity has learnt and can be sure of, against the long list of questions, vagaries and apparent contradictions still needing much clarification.

Embedded in the pages are 18 colour plates depicting a variety of galactic entities: there are supernovas, spiral galaxies and colliding galaxies. Most were taken by NASA's Hubble or Spitzer space telescopes, including an astonishing photograph of the Abell 1689 galaxy cluster, taken by the Hubble. The photographs add both colour and drama - the epic subject matter demands photography of a corresponding standard, and it's pleasing that it's not sold short.

Silk's book may become a leading cosmological manifesto, or be reduced to an historical curiosity by the Next Big Breakthrough.

At the moment, however, it falls comfortably in the former category.

It is a book that rewards careful reading (and, here and there, rereading) and the occasional reflective moment. A little high school algebra is useful.

The occasional flush of humour notwithstanding, the writing is brisk and very much that of a professional scientist. That said, this book deserves a place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the nature of our universe, which probably covers most of us.