You are about to embark on an odyssey. You may already know that word. Odysseus was a hero of ancient Greece. According to legend, he fought for the Greeks on distant shores, and then began an even greater quest-- finding his way back home. The journey of Odysseus took ten long years. It was perilous and thrilling. The hero battled sea monsters, tricked a one-eyed giant, and fled from the sirens--beautiful women who sang sweet songs that lured sailors to their deaths on the rocks. He even traveled to the mythical underworld, the land of the dead, a place no living man had seen before. Through it all, Odysseus was determined to find his way back home. His perseverance paid off, and after many trials he steered his ship into his home port and returned to his wife and son. Odysseus's long, adventurous journey became known as "the Odyssey." The voyage was named after him. Now we use the word odyssey to mean any long and daring voyage. You are about to study the human odyssey, the journey of human beings through time. It has been the greatest quest of all, spanning thousands of years, taking us from pyramids and mummies to space flight. You'll find this human journey has had its heroes, monsters, and giants. It has been marked by moments of peril and times of triumph, times when perseverance and determination have been rewarded, when human beings have been, as the Bible puts it, "little lower than the angels."