Astronomy Before the Telescope

Before the telescope, humanity still reached for the stars. You know the broad strokes of astronomical history, but how much has been lost in translation, filtered through secondhand summaries and Western-centric narratives? The original sources, written in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and other ancient languages, hold a richer and more surprising story than most modern histories dare to tell. If you have ever wondered what ancient and medieval observers actually knew about the Earth, the Moon, tides, eclipses, and timekeeping, the answers may astonish you. Astronomy before the Telescope: Volume I The Earth-Moon System is the restored and updated first volume of a landmark work by Professor Nicholas T. Bobrovnikoff, a research astronomer fluent in ten languages who drew his material directly from original sources spanning millennia. Meticulously edited by Roger B. Culver and David D. Meisel, this volume guides you through early timekeeping techniques, naked-eye measurements of the Earth and Moon, lunar phases and topography, the imagined figures in the face of the Moon, theories of tidal motion, and the centuries-long quest to predict solar and lunar eclipses.