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Book details

Between Copernicus and Galileo

Christoph Clavius and the Collapse of Ptolemaic Cosmology

by James M. Lattis

Published 1995314 pagesISBN 978-0-2264-6929-4

Between Copernicus and Galileo is the story of Christoph Clavius, the Jesuit astronomer who played a central role in integrating traditional Ptolemaic astronomy and Aristotelian world views into the Church's accepted teachings. When Galileo first collided with the Church over his own work, he was in effect combatting a cosmological and intellectual agenda Clavius had worked to create, and a coterie of Church intellectuals Clavius had helped to educate. By tracing Clavius's views from their medieval origins into the seventeenth century, Lattis illuminates the conceptual shift from Ptolemaic to Copernican astronomy and the social, intellectual, and theological impact of the Scientific Revolution.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.

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What the reading experience may hold

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Themes to notice

Nonfiction

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Content notes

No specific content concerns can be confirmed from the available English catalog information. Consult a publisher or reader-supplied guide when detailed warnings matter.

These notes are inferred from available catalog information and may not be complete. Check a publisher or reader-supplied guide if you need comprehensive warnings.

Reading experience

Balanced tone · Steady pace

A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.

Who it may suit

A good fit if…

Readers who want a thoughtful experience and enjoy noticing the connections beneath a book’s surface story.

At a glance

This book's DNA

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ToneBalanced
LuminousDark

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Spoiler-Free Emotional Arc

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PeakRelative emotional intensity
Between Copernicus and GalileoJames M. Lattis
Powerful4.3/5

This visualization is an interpretive estimate based on catalog description, categories, tone, pace, and content signals. It does not describe specific scenes.

Before you choose

A quick reading snapshot

Edition facts and catalog signals to help you decide whether this book fits what you want to read next.

Reading lengthA standard-length read314 pages in this edition
Publication eraModernFirst published or edition dated 1995
Primary categoryNonfictionExplore similar books below
ISBN-13
978-0-2264-6929-4
Language
English
Edition record
OL9891535M
BookenDeX editorial lens

A more thoughtful way into this book

This guide uses the edition details and category signals above to help you choose deliberately. It does not replace the author's work or a full review.

Good to know

A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.

Begin with its place in Nonfiction, then notice where the book resists that label.

Try this reading approach

Read for connection, not completion.

Mark one passage that sharpens the book's central concern and one that complicates it. That tension often reveals more than a quick summary.

Three questions to carry with you

  1. Whose perspective organizes the story, and whose perspective remains outside it?
  2. Which sources or lived experiences carry the author’s central argument?
  3. How does the book change the way you understand its larger subject?

Editorial framework by Wesley Bryan, BookenDeX Founder and Editor.