Astrology: A History, by Peter Whitfield (Abrams, 2001; $35)
Scarcely a culture, ancient or modern, has not produced people who have wondered at one time or another about the order of the universe in which we live and the likely laws that govern it. Their answers often range from pure myth, fantasy, and free association to supposedly universally testable rules that can account for the natural phenomena we all observe. The case of astrology is of special importance because it speaks to the basic human anxiety about the order of the universe and purports to endow its practitioners with the power to predict a person's character and destiny from the arrangement of the planets at the specific moment of birth. This kind of speculation goes back to the earliest texts of ancient civilizations, such as those of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China. A glance at modern magazines will convince anyone who needs convincing that such astrological speculations persist right up to the present.
Sumptuously illustrated with reproductions of manuscript pages from volumes still found in collections of rare books, Astrology: A History covers the field's documented beginnings in Babylonia, its assignment to the celestial sphere during Greek and Roman times, its diffusion and adaptation in India, China, and the Middle East, its eclipse and reemergence in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, its revival during the Renaissance, and its increasing marginalization as the pure sciences became more widespread and accepted.
