Buy used: $2.39

$3.98 delivery May 31 - June 1. Details

Select delivery location

Used: Good | Details

Sold by glenthebookseller

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

Follow the Author

Owen Gingerich

The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus Paperback – February 22, 2005

by Owen Gingerich (Author)

4.5 69 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$20.21

$32.95

$1.89

Paperback

"Please retry"

$2.39

$22.50

$2.39

Examines how De revolutionibus, the technical sixteenth-century treatise by Nicolaus Copernicus, helped launch a revolution more profound than the Reformation and how the six hundred surviving copies have evolved into million-dollar cultural icons. Reprint.

Print length

320 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Penguin Books
Publication date

February 22, 2005
Reading age

18 years and up
Dimensions

5.06 x 0.62 x 7.68 inches
ISBN-10

0143034766
ISBN-13

978-0143034766
See all details

Most purchased | Highest rated | Lowest Pricein this set of products
Erich Maria Remarque
11,486
Mass Market Paperback
$6.99
This item:
Owen Gingerich
69
Paperback
35 offers from $2.39
Dava Sobel
144
Hardcover
$13.90
David Bodanis
447
Paperback
$15.99
Penny Le Couteur
846
Paperback
$16.99

Editorial Reviews

Review

A compulsively readable detective story about how one of astronomys greatest discoveries came about. -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch

A treasure of information, intellectual history, and personal passion. -- Alan Lightman, author of Einsteins Dreams

An adventure book, not of the white-knuckle variety, but with a genteel, satisfying tone all its own. -- Entertainment Weekly

One of the most astonishing and obsessive feats of scientific gumshoeing ever undertaken ... utterly fascinating. -- Chicago Tribune

[An] exuberant tale... an altogether engrossing, edifying romp through ideas and moveable type. -- Dava Sobel, author of Longitude and Galileos Daughter

About the Author

Owen Gingerich is senior astronomer emeritus at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and research professor of astronomy and the history of science at Harvard University.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books; Reprint edition (February 22, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0143034766
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0143034766
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.06 x 0.62 x 7.68 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #296,629 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #372 in Cosmology (Books)
- #902 in History & Philosophy of Science (Books)
- #26,251 in History (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.5 69 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Owen Gingerich

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

69 global ratings

5 star		69%
4 star		17%
3 star		8%
2 star		4%
1 star		2%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Renate W. Prescott

Informative reading for lovers of books

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 30, 2023

Verified Purchase

I learned so much reading Gingerich's study about Copernicus' book on the revolution of the planets. I realized how fascinated his contemporaries were about this new way of understanding their place in the universe. I wonder in our own time how much more we have learned about our little corner of the universe--thanks to the Hubble and James Webb telescopes--and how little we actually do know about the universe. Is it truly endless? If so, what is beyond the end? Do we live in a bubble encased within other, larger universes? Do we live in a holographic universe?

Reading Gingerich's absorbing book is particularly fascinating about the marginalia he discovered, which helped him trace the provenance, giving us a rare glimpse into how Copernicus' readers engaged with the text (Galileo, Brache, Kepler, Rheticus, etc.). Gingerich found that the "book nobody read" was, in fact, a book that was read.

I recommend as a companion reading, Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World by Colin Wells. It is another exploration of how knowledge was lost and then regained by scholars who after the so-called dark ages had to go to Byzantium to read the Greek masters in their original language. It is interesting that knowledge of all kinds seems to move forward, only to be lost, and then rediscovered.

The most important lesson from Gingerich's sleuthing is how libraries are so important to keep. I don't say this lightly; regional libraries are disappearing, school libraries are being compressed (we lost our library at a regional university campus), and bookstores--they're mostly gone.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

John Rummel

A superb biography of a book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 13, 2004

Verified Purchase

The period from Copernicus to Newton is certainly one of the richest and most important in the history of astronomy. Material covering this period is plentiful and one of the chief challenges for the casual historian of astronomy is culling through the options and deciding what to read.

Certainly biographies figure high on the priority list. Here the selections reflect the amount of material available about the lives of the principle players. Galileo and Newton have no shortage of books devoted to their lives and work. Biographies of Copernicus are rare because relatively little is known of his life. Kepler and Tycho fall somewhere in the middle.

The current work of by Owen Gingerich is a very different take. It is essentially the biography of a book: Copernicus' seminal De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium.

Gingerich has been in a hunt for surviving copies of the 1st and 2nd editions of Copernicus' De Rev for over 30 years, and this book tells the story of his journey and its rewards, trials, dead-ends, who dunits, and frustrations. Gingerich has written of his trek before, in magazines and selected articles. Many of these pieces have been released in his two excellent compilations, The Great Copernicus Chase and The Eye of Heaven, but those few pieces were only tantalizing morsels. The full course meal is in the present volume, and it is a treat.

Gingerich's census of surviving copies of De Rev presents a unique window into the development of cosmology and the slow acceptance of the heliocentric view. Early scholarly readers were in the habit of annotating their copies, pointing out their agreements and dissents, occasional passages of scripture, comments of their teachers, etc. Since many of the books passed from owner to owner over the centuries, Gingerich found many copies that contained multiple layers of annotations, marginal notes, edits, censorings, etc.

What began as a simple census of extant copies soon turned into a scientific/historic detective story as Gingerich traced the various schools of thought, teacher/student relationships, and geographic migration of ideas through 16th to 18th century Europe. The result is a fascinating, personal account of the journey, detailing many of Gingerich's wrong turns and dead ends as well as the brilliant deductions and "aha" moments as he traveled the globe and interacted with the community of Copernicus scholars, rare book dealers, and often, the seamy underside of library theft and international looting during wartime.

The title, by the way, is lifted from Arthur Koestler's The Sleepwalkers, a work which Gingerich read as a graduate student. Koestler referred to De Rev as "the book nobody read," and Gingerich was inspired to find out if that was really true. Except for the opening chapter on cosmology, De Rev is a murderously technical and geometrical treatise, and could only be understood by those well-trained in mathematics. But as Gingerich soon learned, it was far from ignored.

Gingerich's book has much to add to any history of the period. De Rev was owned by virtually all of the important figures in the history of astronomy. Tycho, Kepler, Galileo and Newton all figure prominently in the story, and Gingerich's clear prose and knack for story telling will give even the uninitiated reader a pleasurable introduction to one of the most fascinating periods in history. However, to the knowledgeable reader who is already familiar with the development of ideas in astronomy, this book will be hard to put down due to its unique spin on the period.

Gingerich has produced an instant classic in the history of astronomy with this book. It is a fascinating read and has already entered my personal top-ten list as a book that will be referred to again and again.

12 people found this helpful

Helpful

David C. Bossard

A Book You Should Read

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 31, 2009

Verified Purchase

I love this book. It is a historical who-dun-it centered on the marginal notes made in the copies of De Revolutionibus On the Revolutions: Nicholas Copernicus Complete Works (Foundations of Natural History) , the book by Nicholas Copernicus that started the Age of Science. In loose connection with the 500 year anniversary of Copernicus' birth in 1973, Dr. Gingerich set out on the "boring" task of compiling a list of all known copies of the first and second editions of the book. This task took almost 30 years, and in the process, Dr. Gingerich used the marginalia to reconstruct a lively history of the early participants (and opponents) in the Copernican revolution which spanned the lives of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei.

For me it was a slow read -- not because of technical detail but because it is such a fascinating story that I didn't want to go at my normal pace. I can hardly think of higher praise than this. I relish stories of people who worked at the true frontiers of science, as these men did.

Just one small carp. The footnote on p. 191 is a bit misleading. Commenting on a fresco "observing the eclipse at Christ's passion" he states "There couldn't have been an eclipse at that time. Jesus was crucified the day after Passover..." This is wrong on two counts. True, there was no solar eclipse (as the fresco indicates according to a communication with the author), but there was a lunar eclipse at the crucifixion (which Peter refers to in Acts 2:20). Second, the crucifixion was on the "day of preparation" for the Passover -- just preceding the Passover feast. See the Wikipedia article on the Crucifixion of Jesus citing the 1983 article by Humphreys and Waddington, and the dvd The Star of Bethlehem which also mentions the eclipse. The crucifixion was on Friday, April 3, 33 AD.

I recommend this book as bedside reading for anyone interested in a great who-dun-it.

HMSChallenger

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer

A great book for anyone interested in the development of modern ...

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on May 26, 2017

Verified Purchase

This book sets out to prove its title is wrong and that Copernicus' book which Arthur Koestler called 'The book nobody read' was in fact thoroughly studied by many people. Owen Gingerich very interestingly chronicles the years of travel and research which he put into viewing every surviving copy of the two 16'th century editions of "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres". In doing so he also provides a fresh perspective on the way the book was received when it was originally printed, as well as a vivid view into the world of book collecting and book stealing. A great book for anyone interested in the development of modern ideas of the universe, or would just like a good read.

One person found this helpful

See all reviews

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers	6pm Score deals on fashion brands	AbeBooks Books, art & collectibles	ACX Audiobook Publishing Made Easy	Sell on Amazon Start a Selling Account

Amazon Business Everything For Your Business	Amazon Fresh Groceries & More Right To Your Door	AmazonGlobal Ship Orders Internationally	Home Services Experienced Pros Happiness Guarantee	Amazon Ignite Sell your original Digital Educational Resources	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services

Audible Listen to Books & Original Audio Performances	Book Depository Books With Free Delivery Worldwide	Box Office Mojo Find Movie Box Office Data	ComiXology Thousands of Digital Comics	DPReview Digital Photography	Fabric Sewing, Quilting & Knitting

Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities	IMDbPro Get Info Entertainment Professionals Need	Kindle Direct Publishing Indie Digital & Print Publishing Made Easy	Amazon Photos Unlimited Photo Storage Free With Prime	Prime Video Direct Video Distribution Made Easy

Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands	Amazon Warehouse Great Deals on Quality Used Products	Whole Foods Market America’s Healthiest Grocery Store	Woot! Deals and Shenanigans	Zappos Shoes & Clothing	Ring Smart Home Security Systems

eero WiFi Stream 4K Video in Every Room	Blink Smart Security for Every Home	Neighbors App Real-Time Crime & Safety Alerts	Amazon Subscription Boxes Top subscription boxes – right to your door	PillPack Pharmacy Simplified	Amazon Renewed Like-new products you can trust

Follow the Author

The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus Paperback – February 22, 2005

What do customers buy after viewing this item?

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Product details

Videos

About the author

Owen Gingerich

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries