A delightfully bizarre journey through lavish special-effects environments from 1550 to the present, this history of illusionism indicates how the Renaissance and early Baroque artists pioneered the interactive, the cinematic, and even the digital. Klein argues that modern special effect have a unique grammar, as precise as the rules of film, theater and music; he then reviews its syntax and demonstrates how special effects are a barometer for politics, myths of identity and economic relations. Finally, Klein uses these instructive parallels to explain where our special-effects civilization may be heading next.