"More than a century after its first publication in English, J.L.E. Dreyers classic work remains a helpful and readable introduction to historical astronomy. Beginning with mankinds first attempts to understand its place in the universe and continuing through the age of Isaac Newton, Dreyer rectifies errors and sets the historical record straight, connecting modern astronomers to those who laid the groundwork before them. A History of the Planetary Systems from Thales to Kepler covers: the earliest cosmological Ideas the Pythagorean school Plato and Aristotle the Ptolemaic system Oriental astronomers and the revival of astronomy in Europe Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler and much more. Danish astronomer and a historian of astronomy JOHAN LUDWIG EMIL DREYER (18521926) also wrote a history of the Royal Astronomical Society and a biography of astronomer Tyco Brahe."

Masterpiece of historical insight and scientific accuracy and the definitive work on Greek astronomy and the Copernican Revolution. Includes surveys of European and Islamic cosmologies of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

From the reviews: "This monumental work will henceforth be the standard interpretation of ancient mathematical astronomy. It is easy to point out its many virtues: comprehensiveness and common sense are two of the most important. Neugebauer has studied profoundly every relevant text in Akkadian, Egyptian, Greek, and Latin, no matter how fragmentary; [...] With the combination of mathematical rigor and a sober sense of the true nature of the evidence, he has penetrated the astronomical and the historical significance of his material. [...] His work has been and will remain the most admired model for those working with mathematical and astronomical texts. D. Pingree in Bibliotheca Orientalis, 1977 "... a work that is a landmark, not only for the history of science, but for the history of scholarship. HAMA [History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy] places the history of ancient Astronomy on a entirely new foundation. We shall not soon see its equal. N.M. Swerdlow in Historia Mathematica, 1979

This book examines the interplay between the Platonic-Pythagorean tradition and the mechanical philosophy during the 'scientific revolution'.