Starborn by Roberto Trotta (Hardback)

£22.00
Available
Product Ref. (e.g. ISBN, SKU)
9781529346084
Published:
09 Nov 2023
Format:
Hardback
Number of pages:
336 pages
Dimensions:
236x158x38mm
Weight:
0.580kgs
Author:
For tens of thousands of years, the stars were our constant companions. One of our species' most enduring and universal relationships has been with the night sky itself, yet in the glow of today's artificial lighting, we have forgotten this intimacy with the cosmos. Stargazing has shaped the course of human civilization. The rhythm of our ancestors' lives revolved around the stars, from cycles of agriculture to patterns of birth. Origin myths made the Sun into a life-giving creator and the Milky Way a gateway for departed souls. Leading cosmologist Roberto Trotta imagines a world without stars, a dramatic alternate history in which we wouldn't understand gravity, couldn't navigate or have much sense of time, and where our sense of the profound was altered beyond recognition.

A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK

'A stunning and unforgettable voyage through the stars. Almost every page will make you gulp in astonishment' STEPHEN FRY

'Trotta writes like a poet . . . meticulously researched, with an almost limitless archive of stellar trivia' WALL STREET JOURNAL

A sweeping inquiry into how the night sky has shaped what it means to be human.

One of our species' most enduring and universal relationships has been with the night sky itself - yet in the glow of today's artificial lighting, we have forgotten this intimacy with the cosmos.


In Starborn, cosmologist Roberto Trotta reveals how stargazing has shaped the course of civilisation. Origin myths made the Sun into a life-giving creator and the Milky Way a gateway for departed souls. The motion of celestial bodies sustained the illusion that the Earth was at the centre of the cosmos - until looking at them more closely sparked the Scientific Revolution.

Across the ages, the stars have served as clocks, maps, compasses, muses, and gods, defining our laws of reality and our dreams of the sublime. How radically different would we be if we looked to the night sky and saw . . . nothing? Trotta also offers a dramatic alternate history, imagining how a world without stars would change our understanding of science, art, and ourselves.

Revealing the fundamental connections between astronomy and the story of civilisation, Starborn summons us to lose ourselves in the immeasurable vastness above - and will change how you think of the night sky forever.

About the Author: Roberto Trotta is Professor of Theoretical Physics at the International School for Advanced Study in Trieste, Italy, and a visiting professor of astrostatistics at Imperial College London. The award-winning author of The Edge of the Sky, he lives under dark skies near Trieste.

More Information
Number of pages 336

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