During the 1530s, rumours of a potentially revolutionary theory of how the heavens worked emanating from a small city in Poland began to spread throughout Europe. The architect of this theory was a Polish cleric named Nicolaus Copernicus. In around 1514 Copernicus had written and hand-copied an initial outline of his heliocentric theory, in which he placed the Sun, not the Earth, at the centre of our universe, with the planets, including the Earth, revolving about it. Titled his Commentariolus, it circulated among a very few astronomers. Over the next two decades Copernicus expanded his theory through hundreds of sightings, leading to a secretive manuscript whose existence tantalised mathematicians and scientists all over the world. In 1539 a young German mathematician, Georg Joachim Rheticus, travelled to Frombork to meet Copernicus; months later he departed with the manuscript for the book that would change the way we understand our place in the universe. Rheticus arranged for the publication of De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) - legend has it Copernicus received a copy on his deathbed. This book would forever change the way we thought about our place in the universe. In her compelling style, Dava Sobel chronicles the history of the Copernican Revolution, relating the story of astronomy from Aristotle to the Middle Ages. And as she achieved with her international bestsellers Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, in A More Perfect Heaven, Sobel expands the bounds of popular science writing, giving us an unforgettable portrait of a major step forward in the human knowledge of our universe.

About the Author

Dava Sobel is the acclaimed author of the bestselling titles Longitude, Galileo's Daughter, The Illustrated Longitude, and The Planets. She lives in East Hampton, New York.

Prizes

The bestselling author of Longitude and Galileo's Daughter tells the story of Nicolaus Copernicus and the revolution in astronomy that changed the world.

Reviews

Sobel, author of the bestselling Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, brings something different to the bulging Copernicus canon. She wants to know why Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) waited till shortly before his death to publish the universe-expanding ideas that he had previously only quietly circulated among other scientists. Her conclusion: in the midst of Martin Luther's challenge to the Catholic Church, Copernicus, himself a Church canon, feared the Church's response to his radical notion that Earth revolved around the Sun. His thesis, of course, altered nothing less than the our view of our place in the cosmos. Daringly, Sobel embeds within a factual narrative a two-act play in which she imagines the relationship between the aging Copernicus and a young mathematician (and Lutheran) named Georg Joachim Rheticus, who Sobel says "convinced" the great astronomer "to publish his crazy idea." Delivered with her usual stylistic grace (and here, a touch of astrological whimsy), Sobel's gamble largely succeeds in bringing Copernicus and his intellectually and religiously tumultuous time alive. B&w illus., maps. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.