A Short History of Astronomy

Before telescopes, before Newton, before any of the tools we now take for granted, people looked at the night sky and asked the same questions we still ask today. This is the story of how we slowly, painstakingly, began to find the answers. Berry traces the arc of astronomical discovery from the stargazers of ancient Babylon and Egypt, through the revolutionary Copernican system, to the Victorian age when the universe seemed both larger and more mysterious than ever before. He writes for the curious reader who wants to understand not just what we know about the heavens, but how we came to know it. This is popular science at its finest: rigorous enough to satisfy, passionate enough to inspire. For anyone who has ever lain on their back and wondered.