Report on the Second Half of the Twentieth Century: Books 16-22 is the final instalment in the multi-book long poem Ken Norris began in 1977. The seven books collected here were written between 1989 and 2000. This volume extends and completes the 22-book sequence and brings it to its intriguing conclusion. The format and content concerns of these seven books are diverse and far ranging. Book 16, ' Notes for Reconstructing Babylon, ' explores the cultural and spiritual realities of a long vanished Mesopotamian civilization, while also keeping an eye on the first Gulf War that is gathering on the horizon. Fragments from the ' Lost Book of Mu' (Book 17) is a meditation on the fabled ' lost continent' of the Pacific. ' The Book of Broken Moonlight' (Book 18) and ' Boulevard Saint Laurent' (Book 19) survey the ecstasies and vicissitudes of post-modern love. In Book 20, ' Judgement, or The Wordsworth Project, ' Norris traces the roots of the contemporary long poem while walking the history-haunted streets of Prague; in ' Blizzard of the World' (Book 21) he brings the curtain down on the 20th century, while also finding time to investigate the tragic realities of Shakespeare' s King Lear. The final book, ' The Book of the Fool, ' addresses the folly of a world subject to the forces of history.