An excellent one-semester introduction to astronomy for students who are not majoring in science, who have slight science and mathematics backgrounds, and who take the course by choice rather than to fulfill a requirement. The mathematical competence assumed is that provided by high school algebra, and no knowledge of physics is assumed. Because this is possibly the only science course the students will take in college, it attempts to show science in its cultural setting by presenting some of the history of astronomy, particularly the Copernican revolution, and to present science as an ongoing process rather than as a catalog of facts. The emphasis throughout the book is less on facts about astronomical objects than on the methods by which those facts are obtained and the uncertainties in our knowledge of them.
