Customer Reviews

The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus

5 star:		(23)
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The story of Copernicus and his description of the heliocentric universe forms the background of this fascinating book. The scientific revolution began with Copernicus. Owen Gingerich is an astrophysicist and historian of science who began his whimsical quest in 1970 as part of the preparation for the 500th anniversary of Copernicus birth in 1973. International scholarly celebrations were planned and Gingerich was on the committee to prepare them. The question arose whether many owners of the book had actually read all the way through this massive and rather tedious tome. Gingerich happened to be visiting Scotland at the time and decided to look at a copy of "De revolutionibus," known to be in the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh. To his surprise, the copy was heavily annotated all the way through. It had been very carefully read by someone. The reader had even corrected a number of errors in the text. Gingerich searched for evidence of the reader's name. Finally, he discovered the initials ER stamped on the cover. With a shock, he realized that these might be the initials of Erasmus Reinhold, the leading mathematical astronomer of the generation after Copernicus. Gingerich eventually found samples of Reinhold's writing and confirmed his hypothesis. For the next 30 years, he searched for other copies of the great work and recorded the annotations placed in the margins by owners during the Renaissance. He became an expert on Copernicus and the sociology of science in the 15th and following centuries. He also became an expert on paper-making, printing and binding. This resulted in several detective stories as book thieves and forgers were uncovered and prosecuted. I found the details of the book-making science nearly as interesting as the main story and have ordered books on early printing and paper making. This is a book for those interested in history and in astronomy. Occasionally the details get to be slow going but these spots are few and the story moves along well. If you are interested in the history of the Renaissance, this will fill in places missing in most political histories. It is excellent writing and excellent history.

It's remarkable that a complicated science book published more than 460 years ago could come alive in the pages of a new book, but that's the case in The Book Nobody Read-the story of astronomer Owen Gingerich's 30-year quest to see in person every existing copy of Nicolaus Copernicus's revolutionary 1543 book De revolutionibus, which for the first time suggested that the Sun, not the Earth, was at the center of the universe.

Gingerich found copies originally owned by Galileo, Kepler, and a host of important figures in the 16th century, many of them annotated-and in those annotations he found fascinating information about the debate between scientists and the Catholic Church over the true state of the universe, and about how knowledge spread in the 16th century. Along the way he shows us how he found the books (all over the world, from Beijing and Melbourne to Europe, Scandinavia, and America); takes us to the trial of a man accused of stealing a copy (Gingerich was the expert witness for the prosecution) and to a dramatic auction of another copy (he often consults to auction houses); offers intriguing details on how Copernicus's massive book was printed and speculates on how many copies would have been printed; and perhaps most interestingly, weaves into his story those of 16th- and 17th-century scientific intellectuals whose insights are cornerstones of our knowledge today.

Book jackets often overstate a book's significance, but the last paragraph of this jacket description seems very accurate: "Part biography of a book, part scientific exploration, part bibliographic detective story, The Book Nobody Read recolors the history of cosmology and offers new appreciation of the enduring power of an extraordinary book and its ideas." This is one of the smartest books I've read in a long time.

First Class Detective Story

The author chronicles his 30 year search for fate of the original copies of the Copernicus's revolutionary text. This makes for a first rate detective story. The book is as hard to put down as any good mystery.

Gingerich shows that the history of astronomy is interwoven with the entire history of mankind.

See Also:

The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus

and

God's Universe

Highly recommended.

First Class Detective Story

The author chronicles his 30 year search for fate of the original copies of the Copernicus's revolutionary text. This makes for a first rate detective story. The book is as hard to put down as any good mystery.

Gingerich shows that the history of astronomy is interwoven with the entire history of mankind.

See Also:

The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus

and

God's Universe

Highly recommended.

In the year of my birth, Arthur Koestler threw down a gauntlet when he labeled Nicolaus Copernicus' De revolutionibus [arguably the greatest science book of the last few thousand years] "the book nobody read." Owen Gingerich, astronomer and bibliophile, picked up that gauntlet and did battle with Koestler in the way a scientist must do battle - find empirical evidence that the book had been read. The Book Nobody Read is Gingerich's popular account of his decades long effort to track down every extant copy of the first and second edition of De revolutionibus to look for evidence of use [mainly using the marginalia left by the readers/owners]. The book flap blurb nails the book when it calls The Book Nobody Read "part biography of a book, part scientific exploration, [and] part bibliographic detective story." The blurb writer could have tossed in adventure story, too. I enjoyed the book immensely, especially the excellent way in which The Book Nobody Read illustrates the use of the scientific [empirical] method for what many folks would perceive as a non-traditional use. As a bibliophile and science teacher, I'm probably a member of the perfect audience for this book. I include the previous statement as a caution, because at least one of the reviewers seems to have misjudged what the book was about. If you are interested in traditional biography and want a book on Nicolaus Copernicus, The Book Nobody Read may disappoint. If you like books on books and have an interest in history [especially the history of science], I think you'd rate this book a classic.

First Class Detective Story

The author chronicles his 30 year search for fate of the original copies of the Copernicus's revolutionary text. This makes for a first rate detective story. The book is as hard to put down as any good mystery.

Gingerich shows that the history of astronomy is interwoven with the entire history of mankind.

See Also:

The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus

and

God's Universe

Highly recommended.

I am neither a scientist nor a bibliophile, so I warily picked up this book. It was fascinating! Chapter 1 begins, literally, with a federal case, and then the hunt begins. Over the course of years, what began simply as a case of curiosity, has led Owen Gingerich to become one of the foremost authorities on De Revolutionibus by Copernicus - on the actual physical first and second editions that is. Although as an astronomer, I'm sure he is quite familiar with the science contained therein. I am amazed by the strokes of luck that seemed to befall him in his pursuit - almost to the point of it being his destiny. The breadth of knowledge he had to acquire: Latin, Renaissance history, graphology (maybe even cryptography), the history and technique of printing, and oft-needed diplomacy is quite amazing. Throughout the entire book, I was able to understand and enjoy every aspect. There is no doubt in my mind that Gingerich loved doing his census. (Kudos to his wife for letting him.) My reward was discovering in Appendix 2 that there are 2 editions within 5 miles of my home. If you enjoy mystery books and if you like learning how history interlinks DON'T BE AFRAID to read this book. It is an enriching experience.

First Class Detective Story

The author chronicles his 30 year search for fate of the original copies of the Copernicus's revolutionary text. This makes for a first rate detective story. The book is as hard to put down as any good mystery.

Gingerich shows that the history of astronomy is interwoven with the entire history of mankind.

See Also:

The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus

and

God's Universe

Highly recommended.

This book pushes all the right buttons for me. For the book lover, it is a search for a rare book. For the scientist, it is the fact that the book in question is one of the most important books in scientific history, De revolutionibus by Nicholas Copernicus, where he proposes the heliocentric (sun-centered) theory of the solar system.

Mr. Gingerich, a respected historian of science, became interested in this book by Copernicus when he read a claim by another historian, Arthur Koestler, that De revolutionibus was read by no one when it was first published, implying that its impact on the history of science was over-rated. So Mr. Gingerich goes on a decades-long search to track down every first and second edition copy of the book still in existence. By his own estimate, that requires a look at better than a thousand copies which reside in libraries both public and private all around the world.

At first glance, this might not seem like a very interesting topic for a book but the quest is merely the thread that holds together a very interesting story, out of which many things develop. We see a man go from a novice to a very sophisticated book expert. We see the insides of interesting libraries all over the world. And, most tellingly, we see how the examination of these old volumes lead to insight after insight into the development of science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Of course, we are told the story of the publication of this very important book with looks at the author, his students & friends and his publisher. But we also see how the annotations of marginalia of the various volumes can indicate a lot about how the book influenced the scientists that followed. Notes in books by well-known scientists like Brahe, Kepler, Galileo and Newton (among many other less-known scientists) show the actual scope of Copernicus' influence despite Koestler's claim. (There are so many fascinating anecdotes in this book but one I particularly enjoy is about Galileo's copy which shows the book altered with appropriate corrections issued by the Inquisition but done in such a way that the original text could still be read easily.)

Yet, even though this book is incredibly enlightening about the development of science in its early centuries, it is made readable by the fact that it always remains a personal quest. Mr. Gingerich himself becomes fascinating to his readers as he describes everything he goes through to see certain copies and come to his conclusions, sometimes making mistakes, revising and covering old ground, but always keeping to his quest. In fact, I have to admit to a little jealousy of Mr. Gingerich. After hearing him describe his tale, I wish I could have experienced it all myself.

I don't know how I missed this book when it first came out. I remember seeing it but somehow passed over it at the time. That was a serious misjudgement. This is a fantastic book and one of the best I've read on the history of science in this period.

A wonderful voyage in search of copies of first and second editions of Copernicus and the revolutions. Mysteries revealed through the tenacious searching for these volumes by Dr.Gingerich. Style is easy to read and maintains ones interest though to the end by the use of comic relief.