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Title: The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus by Owen Gingerich ISBN: 0-8027-1415-3 Publisher: Walker & Company Pub. Date: 01 January, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: An introduction to bibliophilia
Comment: The story of Copernicus and his description of the heliocentric universe forms the background of this fascinating book. The scientific revolution began with Copernicus. Owen Gingerich is an astrophysicist and historian of science who began his whimsical quest in 1970 as part of the preparation for the 500th anniversary of Copernicus birth in 1973. International scholarly celebrations were planned and Gingerich was on the committee to prepare them. The question arose whether many owners of the book had actually read all the way through this massive and rather tedious tome. Gingerich happened to be visiting Scotland at the time and decided to look at a copy of "De revolutionibus," known to be in the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh. To his surprise, the copy was heavily annotated all the way through. It had been very carefully read by someone. The reader had even corrected a number of errors in the text. Gingerich searched for evidence of the reader's name. Finally, he discovered the initials ER stamped on the cover. With a shock, he realized that these might be the initials of Erasmus Reinhold, the leading mathematical astronomer of the generation after Copernicus. Gingerich eventually found samples of Reinhold's writing and confirmed his hypothesis. For the next 30 years, he searched for other copies of the great work and recorded the annotations placed in the margins by owners during the Renaissance. He became an expert on Copernicus and the sociology of science in the 15th and following centuries. He also became an expert on paper-making, printing and binding. This resulted in several detective stories as book thieves and forgers were uncovered and prosecuted. I found the details of the book-making science nearly as interesting as the main story and have ordered books on early printing and paper making. This is a book for those interested in history and in astronomy. Occasionally the details get to be slow going but these spots are few and the story moves along well. If you are interested in the history of the Renaissance, this will fill in places missing in most political histories. It is excellent writing and excellent history.
Rating: 4
Summary: Scholar's Story of Treasure Hunt
Comment: A respected historian of science, Owen Gingerich provides not only a fascinating introduction into the reception of Copernicus's De Revolutionibus but also a terrific narrative about the production of scholarship. The end result is both an engaging chapter in the history of science and an amazing foray into the history of reading more generally.
Rating: 5
Summary: Sleuthing about ownership & readership of De Revolutionibus
Comment: At his death in 1543 Nicholas Copernicus published De Revolutionibus, arguing that the sun, not the earth, was at the center of the known universe. There were over 600 copies of two editions that began to interest astronomical historian Gingerich who set out to scrutinize each copy in libraries and personal collections around the world, partly out of curiosity and partly to judge how widely the book had been read. The author engages in intriguing detective work, extending the known provenance of each book to include other owners while tracing its impact on scientific thinking in 16th and 17th century Europe. Since many of the copies contained marginal comments and were owned by astronomers, it became apparent from studies of handwriting who the students and who the professors were, giving us an insight about the readership. We learn about the formation of watermarks, types of glue, and how papermaking, printing and binding were accomplished. The author's expertise has been called upon to trace prior ownership of stolen copies offered at auction, and we learn that parts of one copy were sometimes used to round out the contents of another copy. Eight pages of bibliographic notes; good 16-page index; 8-pages of color; two appendices, one of which gives the location of extant copies. Highly recommended for history enthusiasts of astronomy and the Renaissance.
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Title: Kepler's Witch: An Astronomer's Discovery of Cosmic Order Amid Religious War, Political Intrigue, and the Heresy Trial of His Mother by James A. Connor ISBN: 0060522550 Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco Pub. Date: 30 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene ISBN: 0375412883 Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Pub. Date: 01 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $28.95 |
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Title: Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps: Empires of Time by Peter Louis Galison ISBN: 0393020010 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: The Curious Life of Robert Hooke: The Man Who Measured London by Lisa Jardine ISBN: 006053897X Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Pub. Date: 03 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: The Man Who Changed Everything : The Life of James Clerk Maxwell by Basil Mahon ISBN: 047086088X Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 03 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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