Description
Recent surveys indicate that up to 70% of Britons check their horoscopes. The BBC’s The Sky at Night is one of the longest continually broadcast programmes in history, and we are constantly dazzled by new images from the Hubble telescope and musings on what is ‘out there’ in modern literature.
This is the first comprehensive examination of astrology’s origins and examines the foundations of a major feature of popular culture in the contemporary west. Campion explores the relationship between astrology and religion, magic and science, and explores its use in politics and the arts in a fascinating read.
The book’s scope and depth is greater than any other comparable text. Beginning with theories of the origins of religion in sun-worship, it spans the period between the first Paleolithic lunar counters around 30,000BC and the end of the classical world and rise of Christianity.
The second volume covers the medieval and modern worlds.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chap 1 Distant Echoes: Origins of Astrology
Chap 2 Prehistory: Myths and Megaliths
Chap 3 The Mesopotamian Cosmos:
The Marriage of Heaven and Earth
Chap 4 Mesopotamian Astrology:
The Writing of Heaven:
Chap 5 The Assyrians and Persians:
Revolution and Reformation
Chap 6 Egypt: The Kingdom of the Sun
Chap 7 Egypt: The Stars and the Soul
Chap 8 The Hebrews: Prophets and Planets
Chap 9 Greece: Homer, Hesiod and the Heavens
Chap 10 Greece: The Platonic Revolution
Chap 11 The Hellenistic World: The Zodiac
Chap 12 The Hellenistic World: Scepticism and Salvation
Chap 13 Hellenistic Astrology: Signs and Influences:
Chap 14 Rome: the State, the Stars and Subversion
Chap 15 Christianity: A Star out of Jacob
Chap 16 Rome: The Imperial Heaven
Chap 17 Christianity: the Triumph of the Sun
Afterword
Bibliography
Index
Author(s)
Nicholas Campion,
Nicholas Campion is senior lecturer in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Wales, Lampeter. He is director of the University’s Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture, where he teaches the MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology. He is also on the faculty of Kepler College, Seattle.
Reviews
"It shines light on the heaven for scholars and amateurs alike; its narrative is dense but rich, readable and suggestive." Literary Review
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'Campion leaves few stones unturned and the large section of notes and the ample bibliography make these two volumes [History of Western Astrology Volume I and II] an excellent starting point for those who wish to dig deeper.' - The Observatory
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