The Moon and the Western Imagination [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Scott L. Montgomery (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1999

The Moon is at once a face with a thousand expressions and the archetypal planet. Throughout history it has been gazed upon by people of every culture in every walk of life. From early perceptions of the Moon as an abode of divine forces, humanity has in turn accepted the mathematized Moon of the Greeks, the naturalistic lunar portrait of Jan van Eyck, and the telescopic view of Galileo. Scott Montgomery has produced a richly detailed analysis of how the Moon has been visualized in Western culture through the ages, revealing the faces it has presented to philosophers, writers, artists, and scientists for nearly three millennia. To do this, he has drawn on a wide array of sources that illustrate mankind's changing concept of the nature and significance of heavenly bodies from classical antiquity to the dawn of modern science. Montgomery especially focuses on the seventeenth century, when the Moon was first mapped and its features named. From literary explorations such as Francis Godwin's Man in the Moone and Cyrano de Bergerac's L'autre monde to Michael Van Langren's textual lunar map and Giambattista Riccioli's Almagestum novum, he shows how Renaissance man was moved by the lunar orb, how he battled to claim its surface, and how he in turn elevated the Moon to a new level in human awareness. The effect on human imagination has been cumulative: our idea of the Moon, and therefore the planets, is multilayered and complex, having been enriched by associations played out in increasingly complicated harmonies over time. We have shifted the way we think about the lunar face from a "perfect" body to an earthlike one, with corresponding changes in verbal and visual expression. Ultimately, Montgomery suggests, our concept of the Moon has never wandered too far from the world we know best—the Earth itself. And when we finally establish lunar bases and take up some form of residence on the Moon's surface, we will not be conquering a New World, fresh and mostly unknown, but a much older one, ripe with history.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Our closest celestial neighbor, the moon has haunted and intrigued humanity from prehistory to the present. It has inspired the work of poets, artists, philosophers, theologians and scientists. Montgomery's prodigiously detailed, scholarly work joins these various disciplines, displaying vast depth of knowledge in areas divergent from geology, the field in which he is trained. From the pre-Socratic philosophers through the rise and fall of Rome, the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Montgomery stitches a story of religious allegory, scientific inquiry and artistic insight. The moon, he writes, is "the most dominant but changeable element of the night sky." Among the masters on whom Montgomery draws are Galileo and Copernicus, Leonardo and Van Eyck. Their wide-ranging exertions are depicted and studied in their.interrelated historical context. We learn, for instance, of Plutarch's anthropomorphic imagery in his On the Face Which Appears in the Orb of the Moon; that in early Christian art the sun and moon were associated with the crucified Christ; that, in a shift away from allegorical images of the moon, Jan Van Eyck was the first artist, long before Leonardo, to give a naturalistic image of the lunar surface. Beneath the easy-reading style lies a work of substance that is a narrow but penetrating contribution to cultural history. 14 photos, 12 line drawings. Astronomy Book Club selection. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"This erudite but accessible account surveys human thought through the ages to show that even in the 20th century, our modern image of the moon retains connotations far beyond its matter-of-fact identity as a cold, rocky sphere." —Science News "[A] work of painstaking scholarship. . . . It is fascinating to see how each era viewed the moon in terms of the religious and philosophical climate of the period." —Choice "With humankind's thoughts, feelings and beliefs projected upon the Moon as its focus, this wonderful book—masterful in scope, rich in detail, and a pleasure to read—takes the reader on a sometimes surprising and often fascinating and enlightening journey across the arts and sciences." —Leonardo "Montgomery stitches a story of religious allegory, scientific inquiry and artistic insight. . . . Beneath the easy-reading style lies a work of substance that is a narrow but penetrating contribution to cultural history." —Publishers Weekly

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 264 pages
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press; illustrated edition edition (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816517118
• ISBN-13: 978-0816517114
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,534,392 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Scott L. Montgomery is an author, geologist, and independent scholar. In addition to his books, he has written many scientific and scholarly papers and monographs on a range of subjects, including energy, petroleum geology, history of science, language studies, education, and American culture. He teaches in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, and has lectured at many universities.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The moon, and much more, May 10, 2000

By 

Eileen Galen (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Moon and the Western Imagination (Hardcover)

This book is remarkable for its breadth and depth, and for its fluid and totally enjoyable narrative. Montgomery brings a scholarly, well-organized, imaginatively catholic mind to his study of the moon, as mapped, observed, and imagined by Western minds. His enthusiasm for his subject is contagious. He discusses the early cartography so important to popular conceptions of the moon, the moon's complex and changing relationship to Christianity and Judaism, philosophy, mathematics, literature, and art. Importantly, he provides an orderly and very interesting history of Western conceptions of "the first modern planet." The Arab contribution to astronomy is detailed. The relationship of mathematics to astronomy is also explored, fluidly and appropriately for the lay person. Galileo, Copernicus, and scores of lesser-known astronomers and scientists come to life in this book. "The British Contribution," a chapter on sixteenth century lunar pioneers Dr. Wm. Gilbert and Thomas Harriot, is excellent. Montgomery also analyzes cartographic evidence - and provides commentary. This book combines scholarship with a fine and elegant narrative, the bibliography is terrific, and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in this subject, which becomes downright thrilling in this book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Is the Moon a Harsh Mistress?, November 18, 2003

By 

Roger D. Launius "Historian" (Washington, D.C., United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Moon and the Western Imagination (Hardcover)

What is it about the Moon that captures the fancy of humankind? A silvery disk hanging in the night sky, it conjures up images of romance and magic. It has been counted upon to foreshadow important events, both of good and ill, and its phases for eons served humanity as its most accurate measure of time. With the invention of the telescope at the turn of the seventeenth century-coinciding with the rise of the scientific revolution-the Moon took on new meaning as a tangible place with mountains and valleys and craters that could be named and geological features and events that could be studied.

Geologist Scott L. Montgomery has produced a richly detailed analysis of how the Moon has been visualized in Western culture through the ages, revealing the faces it has presented to philosophers, writers, artists, and scientists for nearly three millennia. To do this, he has drawn on a wide array of sources that illustrate the changing concept of nature and the significance of heavenly bodies from classical antiquity to the dawn of modern science.

Montgomery especially focuses on the seventeenth century, when the Moon was first mapped and its features named. He explores in depth the literary works of Francis Godwin's "Man in the Moone" and Cyrano de Bergerac's "L'autre monde." But he also carries the story to the present, showing how humanity has over time elevated the Moon to a sublime level.

As Montgomery concluded, humans have always assigned a close approximation of the Earth to lunar ideas. When we ultimately colonize the Moon the irony is that we will be setting up shop on a world steeped in a deep human tradition of imagination and history. This is a superb work that explains far more effectively than other works on the subject, the lure of the Moon for humanity.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The moon, and much more, May 10, 2000

By 

Eileen Galen (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Moon and the Western Imagination (Hardcover)

This book is remarkable for its breadth and depth, and for its fluid and totally enjoyable narrative. Montgomery brings a scholarly, well-organized, imaginatively catholic mind to his study of the moon. His enthusiasm for his subject is contagious. He discusses the early cartography so important to popular conceptions of the moon, the moon's complex and changing relationship to Christianity and Judaism, philosophy, mathematics,literature, and art. Importantly, he provides an orderly and very interesting history of Western conceptions of "the first modern planet." The Arab contribution to astronomy is detailed. The relationship of mathematics to astronomy is also explored, fluidly and appropriately for the lay person. Galileo, Copernicus, and scores of lesser-known astronomers and scientists come to life in this book. "The Britsh Contribution," a chapter on sixteenth century lunar pioneers Dr. Wm. Gilbert Thomas Harriot, is particularly well-told. Montgomery also analyzes cartographic evidence - and provides commentary. This book combines scholarship with a fine and elegant narrative, and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in this subject, which becomes downright thrilling in this book.