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Heaven on Earth
- How Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo Discovered the Modern World
- Narrated by: Stephen Bowlby
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
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Publisher's summary
A vivid narrative that connects the lives off our great astronomers as they discovered, refined, and popularized the first major scientific discovery of the modern era: that the Earth moves around the Sun
Today, we take for granted that a telescope allows us to see galaxies millions of light years away. But before its invention, people used nothing more than their naked eye to fathom what took place in the visible sky. So how did four men in the 1500s - of different nationality, age, religion, and class - collaborate to discover that the Earth revolved around the Sun? With this radical discovery that went against the Church, they created our contemporary world - and with it, the uneasy conditions of modern life.
Heaven on Earth is an intimate examination of this scientific family - that of Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo Galilei. Fauber juxtaposes their scientific work with insight into their personal lives and political considerations, which shaped their pursuit of knowledge. Uniquely, he shows how their intergenerational collaboration was actually what made the scientific revolution possible.
Ranging from the birth of astronomy and the methods of early scientific research, Fauber reveals the human story that underlies this civilization altering discovery. And contrary to the competitive nature of research today, collaboration was key to early scientific discovery. Before the rise of university research institutions, deep thinkers only had each other. They created a kind of family, related to each other via intellectual pursuit rather than blood.
Filled with rich characters and sweeping historical scope, Heaven on Earth reveals how the strong connections between these pillars of intellectual history moved science forward - and how, without them, we might have waited a long time for a heliocentric model of the universe.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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The flourishing of radical philosophy in Baron Thierry Holbach’s Paris salon from the 1750s to the 1770s stands as a seminal event in Western history. Holbach’s house was an international epicenter of revolutionary ideas and intellectual daring, bringing together such original minds as Denis Diderot, Laurence Sterne, David Hume, Adam Smith, Ferdinando Galiani, Horace Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, Guillaume Raynal, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In A Wicked Company, acclaimed historian Philipp Blom retraces the fortunes of this exceptional group of friends.
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Excellent Book on Radical Enlightenment
- By EJJ on 02-15-15
By: Philipp Blom
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Figuring
- By: Maria Popova
- Narrated by: Natascha McElhone
- Length: 21 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Figuring explores the complexities of love and the human search for truth and meaning through the interconnected lives of several historical figures across four centuries - beginning with the astronomer Johannes Kepler, who discovered the laws of planetary motion, and ending with the marine biologist and author Rachel Carson, who catalyzed the environmental movement.
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Stunning
- By Laura on 03-12-19
By: Maria Popova
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A More Perfect Heaven
- How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos
- By: Dava Sobel
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In her graceful, compelling style, Dava Sobel chronicles the history of the Copernican Revolution, relating the story of astronomy from Aristotle to the Middle Ages. In its midst will be her play, And the Sun Stood Still, imagining the dialogue that would have transpired between Rheticus and Copernicus in their months together. As she achieved with her bestsellers Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, Sobel expands the bounds of science writing, giving us an unforgettable portrait of scientific achievement.
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Interesting but Not Perfect
- By John on 09-01-12
By: Dava Sobel
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I Am Dynamite!
- A Life of Nietzsche
- By: Sue Prideaux
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Nietzsche wrote that all philosophy is autobiographical, and in this vividly compelling, myth-shattering biography, Sue Prideaux brings listeners into the world of this brilliant, eccentric, and deeply troubled man, illuminating the events and people that shaped his life and work. I Am Dynamite! is the essential biography for anyone seeking to understand history's most misunderstood philosopher.
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Fascinating; tragic
- By Cineaste21 on 12-30-18
By: Sue Prideaux
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God’s Secretaries
- The Making of the King James Bible
- By: Adam Nicolson
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
It is the greatest work of English prose ever written, and it is no coincidence that the translation was made at the moment “Englishness” and the English language had come into its first passionate maturity. Boisterous, elegant, subtle, majestic, finely nuanced, sonorous, and musical, the English of Jacobean England has a more encompassing idea of its own reach and scope than any before or since. It is a form of the language that drips with potency and sensitivity. The age, with all its conflicts, explains the book.
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Not what I was expecting
- By Greg on 12-29-13
By: Adam Nicolson
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Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies
- How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature
- By: Elizabeth Winkler
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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The theory that Shakespeare may not have written the works that bear his name is the most horrible, unspeakable subject in the history of English literature. Scholars admit that the Bard’s biography is a “black hole,” yet to publicly question the identity of the god of English literature is unacceptable, even (some say) “immoral.” In Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies, journalist and literary critic Elizabeth Winkler sets out to probe the origins of this literary taboo.
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Excellent!
- By Virgil Tracy on 06-03-23
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Kierkegaard
- A Single Life
- By: Stephen Backhouse
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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An accessible, expert introduction to one of the greatest minds of 19th century. Whether you're completely new to him, or if you're already familiar with his work, Kierkegaard: A Single Life presents a fresh understanding of his life and thought. Kierkegaard was a brilliant and enigmatic loner whose ideas permeated culture, shaped modern Christianity, and influenced people as diverse as Franz Kafka and Martin Luther King Jr. Though few people today have read his work, that lack of familiarity with the real Kierkegaard is changing with this biography by scholar Stephen Backhouse.
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Great!
- By Will on 07-11-17
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Our Oriental Heritage
- The Story of Civilization, Volume 1
- By: Will Durant
- Narrated by: Robin Field
- Length: 50 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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The first volume of Will Durant's Pulitzer Prize-winning series, Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization, Volume I chronicles the early history of Egypt, the Middle East, and Asia.
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Wonderful
- By Michael on 11-30-13
By: Will Durant
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A Life Observed
- A Spiritual Biography of C.S. Lewis
- By: Devin Brown
- Narrated by: Jon Gauger
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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A Life Observed tells the inspiring story of Lewis' spiritual journey from cynical atheist to joyous Christian. Drawing on Lewis' autobiographical works, books by those who knew him personally, and his apologetic and fictional writing, this spiritual biography brings the beloved author’s story to life while shedding light on his best-known works.
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A beautifully written remembrance
- By Rob on 02-06-18
By: Devin Brown
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The Reason for the Darkness of the Night
- Edgar Allan Poe and the Forging of American Science
- By: John Tresch
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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John Tresch offers a bold new biography of a writer whose short, tortured life continues to fascinate. Shining a spotlight on an era when the lines separating entertainment, speculation, and scientific inquiry were blurred, Tresch reveals Poe's obsession with science and lifelong ambition to advance and question human knowledge. He remained an avid and often combative commentator on new discoveries, publishing and hustling in literary scenes that also hosted the era's most prominent scientists, semi-scientists, and pseudo-intellectual rogues.
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Know the Real Poe
- By Elliott Wolfe, M.D. on 06-28-21
By: John Tresch
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The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
- By: Charles Darwin
- Narrated by: Greg Wagland
- Length: 2 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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This work, unsurprisingly, offers invaluable insights into the life and times of Charles Darwin, his personality and the formative influences that made him what he was, for here we have his own words and ‘voice’ at the close of a prodigiously productive career. He tells of his childhood, his student days at Edinburgh and Cambridge, his love of beetles, shooting and geology and of his grandfather, Josiah Wedgwood. He talks at some length about his meetings with the great scientific men of the age, his attitudes to his critics, to religion and of his theories of evolution.
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Darwin about himself
- By Terry Yancey on 05-23-17
By: Charles Darwin
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The Life and Times of Chaucer
- By: John Gardner
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
In this exquisite biography, John Gardner brings to life Geoffrey Chaucer, illuminating his writings and their inspiration like never before. Through exhaustive research and expert storytelling, Gardner takes readers through Chaucer’s varied career - from writing The Canterbury Tales to performing diplomatic work at the Parliament - and creates a fully realized portrait of an author whose work would remake the English language forever. Written with passion and insight, this a must-listen for those interested in Chaucer and the medieval time period.
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Good book, but quoted passages are in Old English
- By Kathi on 02-26-14
By: John Gardner
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Nostalgia
- Going Home in a Homeless World
- By: Anthony Esolen
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Alone among the creatures of the world, man suffers a pang both bitter and sweet. It is an ache for the homecoming. The Greeks called it nostalgia. Post-modern man, homeless almost by definition, cannot understand nostalgia. If he is a progressive, dreaming of a utopia to come, he dismisses it contemptuously, eager to bury a past he despises. If he is a reactionary, he sentimentalizes it, dreaming of a lost golden age. In this profound reflection, Anthony Esolen explores the true meaning of nostalgia and its place in the human heart.
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Deep and thought provoking.
- By Holly Stockley on 04-24-19
By: Anthony Esolen
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What listeners say about Heaven on Earth
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jeffrey L. Smith, PE
- 12-09-19
Good interweaving of 4 great astronomers
First off, I don’t understand that 1 Star review at all.
The story of how Brahe, Kepler and Galileo worked together (and sometimes against each other) in the world that Copernicus created is foundational to modern physics. How they broke with Greek thought and led to Newton is an important story that deserves to be told and retold.
I’m not sure if telling the story in sections devoted to a specific astronomer is the best way to tell it - it jumps around, but having so many locations and time to cover might force it. Fauber deserves a lot of credit for returning again and again to each astronomer’s actual work - I’m glad he understands it, because I’ll never take the time to actually understand each dead end theory or goofy philosophy.
I think there are a few places where the book might be strengthened, some fall outside the scope of the book. The first, there’s only the briefest mention of how Islamic astronomers and commentaries began the process of poking holes in Greek thought and set the stage for Copernicus. That’s an area for real scholarly research and not just a popular retelling. The story is there, but the military conflicts at the time between Europe and the Ottoman Empire have served to make it hard for either side to give any credit to the other for anything.
The second, the lead in to Newton should have been stronger at the end. Kepler’s call for a new mathematician to continue the work, and a new math to do it were downright prophetic. In the same way that Brahe, Kepler and Galileo read Copernicus, Newton had read Kepler and Galileo. A more explicit discussion of how Kepler gave Newton the correct geometry and postulated a motive force tie directly to gravity and calculus. Galileo’s work on basic mechanics (pendulums and inclined planes) leads to Newton’s own 3 laws of motion.
Finally, a discussion of Brahe’s ridiculously good eyesight and how it created the data Kepler used probably deserved more discussion. Brahe may have hit the natural limit for human eyesight, and his instruments were the best of the day for measuring stellar positions. Kepler knew the observations were the best available and that Brahe wouldn’t fudge his work, even when he disagreed with his mentor’s conclusions. Brahe and Tycho were the right people at the right time - one to take the measurements, the other to interpret the data.
Overall, VERY good book with lots of insights.
Edit: the two books titled “The House of Wisdom” both discuss the Arabic contributions to Ptolemy and mathematics that led to Copernicus’ work. Of the two, I think I prefer Lyons’ book a bit more. Taking them together shows the gradual progress of scientific thought.
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