Product Description

Throughout history, the mysterious dark skies above us have inspired our imaginations in countless ways, influencing our endeavours in science and philosophy, religion, literature and art. Celestial Treasury is a truly beautiful book showing the richness of astronomical theories and illustrations in Western civilization through the ages, exploring their evolution, and comparing ancient and modern throughout. From Greek verse, mediaeval manuscripts and Victorian poetry to spacecraft photographs and computer-generated star charts, the unprecedented wealth of these portrayals is quite breathtaking. How did philosophers and scientists try to explain the order which seems to govern celestial motion? How did geometers and artists measure and map the skies? How many different answers have been proposed for the most fundamental of all questions: When and how did our world come about? Who inhabits the Heavens - gods, angels or extraterrestrials? The answers to these questions can be found among these stunning pages.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #706428 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-16
• Original language: French
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 217 pages

Review
‘Impressive in size and sumptuous in production … a stunning array of historical and modern imagery … A book that anybody with the slightest interest in the subject would be delighted to find waiting after the annual visit of the red-coated gentleman with the suborbital reindeer!’ P. D. Highley, Astronomy & Geophysics

‘… a fascinating combination of ancient star maps and illustrations, mixed with modern photographs and computer-generated images of the cosmos.’ Astronomy Now

‘The artwork for this book is truly beautiful and the accompanying text is literature and thought provoking … an outstanding record of what was probably a remarkable exhibition.’ Martin Barstow, The Observatory

About the Author
Marc Lachièze-Rey is a director of research at the Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique and astrophysicist at the Centre d’Etudes de Saclay. He is the author of the The Cosmic Background Radiation (1999), and Cosmology: A First Course (1995), both published by Cambridge University Press, and The Quest for Unity published by Oxford University Press (1999), as well as many books in French.

Jean-Pierre Luminet is a research director of the Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique, based at the Paris-Meudon observatory. In addition to many research papers in cosmology, the structure of space-time and relativistic astrophysics, he has written several popular science articles and books (including Black Holes, Cambridge University Press, 1992), as well as science documentaries for television. Beyond his outstanding scientific research, he is also a renowned expert in the history of cosmology, and astronomical art and poetry. His first novel, Le rendez-vous de Vénus, was published in 1999 by JC Lattès.

Customer Reviews

Celestial Treasury
I have just bought this book which really is a treasury in every sense of the word. With its giant format and its collection of amazing oldworld and modern pictures and illustrationms it is a pleasure to flip through the pages and see the splendours of the Universe as Mankind has interpreted them through the ages.
I can't wait until I get time to sit down and read the text of the book in detail.
A "must have" book for all lovers of our amazing Universe and our understanding of how it works.