"More than a century after its first publication in English, J.L.E. Dreyer¿s classic work remains a helpful and readable introduction to historical astronomy. Beginning with mankind¿s 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 (1852¿1926) also wrote a history of the Royal Astronomical Society and a biography of astronomer Tyco Brahe."