Conversing with the Planets
How Science and Myth Invented the Cosmos
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- £3.49
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- £3.49
Publisher Description
An award-winning professor takes readers on a guided tour of the stunning celestial discoveries of past cultures. Interweaving the astronomy, mythology, and anthropology of ancient peoples, Aveni shows how to discover the harmony between their beliefs and their study of the sky through naked-eye observations.
From CHAPTER ONE:
"My tales of Venus and Mars, squash and corn, are designed to entice the reader away from some of the widely held notions about the discovery and exploration of nature that are ingrained in modern culture. I want us to walk some worthwhile paths that are not so well trod."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Aveni, a professor of astronomy and anthropology at Colgate University, seeks here to integrate--in his view, reintegrate--the rational universe with a more comforting model that takes into account ``the interrelationship between matter and spirit.'' Such ancient astronomically inclined peoples as the Babylonians and the Mayans, he argues, made direct connections between events in the night sky and those on earth, and hence between nature and culture. The Mayans, for example, used their observations of the path of Venus to create a culturally useful myth about planting. While attempting ``to dispel some of the misconceptions we have about our ancient predecessors,'' Aveni the anthropologist ( Empires of Time ) leads Aveni the astronomer ( The Sky in Mayan Literature ) into giving these ancient pre-scientists what seems like more credit than is their due. In the end, his thesis spins out of orbit into deep New Age space; for a more balanced work of comparative astronomy, see E. C. Krupp's Beyond the Blue Horizon . ( Sept. )
