Owen Gingerich travels around the world while tracking down and investigating copies of Copernicus'
masterpiece, " On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres", in which the 16th century astronomer presented his heliocentric theory.
Gingerich's research, which lasted for 30 years, was inspired by Arthur Koestler’s claim that Copernicus’s complicated work was, in truth, “the book nobody read”. Gingerich gathered all extant copies of the first and second edition of "The Revolutions" and studied them. He engaged in intriguing detective work, extending the known provenance of each book to include other owners while tracing its impact on scientific thinking in 16th and 17th century Europe.
The core of his research was the study of the annotations made in the margins of the books by their famous owners, such as Copernicus’s pupil, Georg Joachim Rheticus, mathematical astronomer Erasmus Reinhold, and Galileo Galilei, as well as many other influential scientists. In locating their copies and finding often extensive marginalia posing responses to the Copernican system, as well as evidence that they used "The Revolutions" as a starting point for further groundbreaking theories, Gingerich proposes that the book was not only read, but “launched a revolution even more profound than the Reformation.”
"The Book Nobody Read" is written in a very scholarly manner. There are hardly any historical descriptions, but a few interesting anecdotes about the book owners. Generally, the book lacks any drama and is more similar to a documenting journal. I'd recommend it if you're interested in the
history of
astronomy or the scientific revolution, but not so much for people who are interested in expanding their knowledge about general history of the 16th century.