American Astronomy : Community, Careers, and Power, 1859-1940

Rating:
Summary: This book is heavy on statistics and light on characters.
Review: As one who enjoys both the science of astronomy and the characters behind the science, this book is little more than a literary exercise in statistical massage. From it's introductory catagorization of rank and file astronomers to those of elite status, Lankford continues to regurgitate the numbers of jobs available, the numbers of observatories, the numbers of doctorate degrees, the number of this, the number of that, and on and on and on and on. With few exceptions there is nothing in the way of personal insight to the astronomers themselves and even less on their accomplishments. While Lankford does a good job of delineating the evolution from astrometry to astronomy to astrophysics, he offers nothing in the way of imagination, insight, and discovery. I suppose credit is due to Mr. Lankford for taking the time to input all of this archive data into a software program (which he obviously did), but I would much rather of had access to that software as reference material than wade through page after page from this shallow perspective of one of the most intriguing and wonderful of all sciences, astronomy.