Customer Reviews

Early Astronomy (Springer Study Edition)

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Much of the content of this book is simple but tedious arithmetic and graphical presentations which give the impression of an unconvincing mix of documented fact and conjecture.

Ample inclusion of much equally unconvincing and largely irrelevant terminology ("The Babylonians also measured... ...using a unit called SHE which literally means 'barley corn'") does little to shed light on the subject.

One could go on but perhaps most telling is the author's allocation of 6 pages (one mostly blank and two and a half containing charts and a photograph) to "Arabic Astronomy," from which came many star names still in use throughout the world and which, some might say, passed almost the entire heritage of astronomy to the Europeans when their commercial interests turned them to navigation at the end of the 15th century (a point not mentioned by the author - his characterization of the Hellenistic Greeks as "Europeans" would probably have been disputed by any member of that ancient culture).

This book is a masterpiece! It covers early astronomy all around the world, not just all around the Medeterranean. The explainations are also excellent!