Astronomy and Culture

While astronomy is a burgeoning science, with tremendous increases in knowledge every year, it also has a tremendous past, one that has altered humanity's understanding of our place in the universe. The impact of astronomy on culture - whether through myths and stories, or through challenges to the intellectual status quo - is incalculable. This volume in the Greenwood Guides to the Universe series examines how human cultures, in all regions and time periods, have tried to make sense of the wonders of the universe. Astronomy and Culture shows students how people throughout time have struggled with the complexities apparent in the night sky, complexities that modern science has only just begun to understand.

EDITH W. HETHERINGTON has a PhD degree in Curriculum and Instruction, and has taught English and English as a second language at several schools, including Razi University in Iran. More recently, she was admitted to the California Bar, and now is the Export Compliance Officer for Chevron Information Technology Company. She has traveled widely in North America, Europe, and the Middle East, and has a first hand acquaintanceship with many of the places mentioned in this book as well as their art and literature.

NORRISS S. HETHERINGTON is the director of the Institute for the History of Astronomy and a Visiting Scholar with the Office for the History of Science and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of several books, includingPlanetary Motions: A Historical Perspective (Greenwood Guides to Great Ideas in Science, 2006). He was a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow in Studies in Interrelationships between Human Values and Science and Technology.