History of Astronomy

John Lankford is Special Assistant to the Provost and Adjunct Professor of History at Kansas State University.

"An excellent and much-needed work, highly recommended." -- Library Journal"Makes a significant contribution through its articles on the discipline's development." -- Rettig on Reference"A welcome addition to the literature of astronomy. This volume brings together, in a very readable and pleasant format, much information scattered among several publications. The unique quality of this work is its five-pronged approach to presenting information. This is an excellent encyclopedia that is easy to use. This encyclopedia is highly recommended for college libraries and for public libraries and high-school libraries that need information beyond that provided by general encyclopedia sets. It should become a standard reference volume, filling a niche in the reference collection as the initial, first-stop source on astronomical topics." -- Reference Books Bulletin/Booklist"Splendidly lives up to the editor's goal of presenting to both the general reader and the specialist a compendium of current scholarship on the history of astronomy. The editor must be congratulated on managing to incorporate such diverse, timely, important essays in onve volume. This volume is an important landmark as it will serve many uses for years." -- Planetarian"The wide range of topics covered in the Encyclopedia also expands our understanding of the history of science beyond a mere summary of the growth of scientific ideas. What Lankford does offer, is a valuable widening of our field of view of what constitutes the history of science." -- Physics Today

• A sampling of the coverage: Alfonsine Tables * Astrometry * Babylonian Astronomy * Canals of Mars * Annie Jump Cannon * Caracol at Chichen Itza * Cometary Astronom y * Crimean Astrophysical Observatory * Cross-Staff * Eratosthenes * Camille Flammarion * Edmund Halley * Harvard College Observatory * Interferometer * Jupiter * Magellanic Clouds * Meridian Instruments * Nautical Almanac Offices * Photoheliograph * Reward System in Modern Astronomy * SETI Project * Solar Constant * Stonehenge * Variation of Latitude * X- Ray Astronomy * and more