THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY

Scholarly and a good addition to Schuman's this takes the reader on the expected road of astral discoveries from primeval times to the astrophysics of the twentieth century. After introductory material on how astronomy happened to get started, its connection with religion and so forth, there are chapters on Greek and non-Greek astronomers, the Alexandrians, the mediaeval scientists and their incomplete work that created the atmosphere of uncertainty which heralded Galileo, Kepler and Newton. Descriptions of the work of these men precedes chapters on Bessel and Struve and present day astronomers. Good spot research material.