"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 histor