The Importance of Understanding the Early Universe

In 1972, a book is published called Gravitation and Cosmology by Stephen Weinberg. It's talking about how the strong interaction makes our understanding of the very early universe difficult. He writes that someday we may detect remnants of previous cycles of the history of the universe. For the present however, such matters remain at the furthest bounds of cosmological speculation. Frank do you remember when you found this book and why did it make such an impression on you? I should say that I came to physics never with a very little conventional training in physics. There are vast gaps in my knowledge.