Popular Science Review - The History of Astronomy

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Review - The History of Astronomy: A Very Short Introduction - Michael Hoskin

It's very difficult to write a compact summary book that is also a great read - and though Michael Hoskin doesn't quite carry it off, this is a good attempt.

Perhaps the best bit of all is the really early stuff - going back to the possibilities (and doubts) about prehistoric alignments, exploring the Ancient Egyptian and Babylonian ideas.

There's then a good section on the Greeks, though it's strange that there's no mention of Archimedes' Sand Reckoner, with its estimates of the scale of solar system (or universe as it was then thought to be), and even more importantly with its references to Aristarchus' alternative model of the universe with the sun at the centre.

Again there's a fair amount of detail on the Islamic work up to the middle ages before switching to the obvious line of Western astronomical discoveries that would put the Sun back at the centre of the universe.

Perhaps the other disappointment after the omission of Archimedes and Aristarchus is the way that Hoskin decided that history stopped in the early 19th century. I appreciate that such a slim volume (just 123 small pages) couldn't cover everything, but it was a shape to miss out on the understanding of the scale of the universe that would transform astronomy after this history finishes.

Apart from those omissions there's nothing wrong with the book. It's readable, non-technical and informative. It just doesn't give that buzz that a subject like this should. There's a suggestion up front in the prehistoric section, but it's unfortunate it doesn't carry through the whole more consistently.

Even so, the best short summary of the early history of astronomy around.

Only in paperback

Reviewed by Jo Reed

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