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Description
In Hellenistic Astronomy: The Science in Its Contexts , new essays by renowned scholars address questions about what the ancient science of the heavens was in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean worlds, and the numerous contexts in which it was pursued. Together, these essays will enable readers not only to understand the technical accomplishments of this ancient science but also to appreciate their historical significance by locating the questions, challenges, and issues inspiring them in their political, medical, philosophical, literary, and religious contexts.
Media reviews
This is an absolutely wonderful book, well-written and a pleasure to read. It is generally based on the most recent research and very informative without being inaccessible to the layman. That the field of ancient astronomy is under rapid development is evident from the bibliography alone. Most of
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the cited works are from the last couple of decades and many new insights are here presented to a wider scholarly audience. It is generously supplied with interesting and relevant illustrations and its structure and composition take the reader by the hand so that it can be read easily from cover to cover. The individual chapters can also be read on their own, and the “Historical Glossary” and indices make it an excellent handbook as well. It provides a status quaestionis in a way which is at the same time accessible to the interested layman and contains a brilliant survey and much new to be learnt for the specialist in any parts of the vast topic covered as well. Show Less
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LibraryThing member AndreasJ
The editors define "Hellenistic astronomy" as the kind of astronomy, incl astrology, that arose in the wake of Alexander's conquest from the absorption of Babylonian astral science into Greek natural philosophy, was brought to something like perfection by Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD, and
The book wasn't quite what I expected; basically it was less about the science and more about the contexts than I anticipated. That was something of a disappointment, but I still found it worthwhile enough to read the thing cover-to-cover.
One thing that seemed to be missing was a chapter on rationalistic (as opposed to religious) criticism of astrology; such is repeatedly mentioned, but never addressed directly.
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dominated the Mediterranean and Near Eastern world until Arab scholars started to make original contributions in the eighth century. One might argue, though the editors do not, that even then nothing fundamental changed until Kepler and Gallileo - even Copernicus' heliocentric system, however radical with respect to Man's place in the universe, was basically Ptolemaic in its mathematical structure.The book wasn't quite what I expected; basically it was less about the science and more about the contexts than I anticipated. That was something of a disappointment, but I still found it worthwhile enough to read the thing cover-to-cover.
One thing that seemed to be missing was a chapter on rationalistic (as opposed to religious) criticism of astrology; such is repeatedly mentioned, but never addressed directly.
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Language
ISBN
9789004243361
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751 pages!