A Brief History of Ancient Astrology

by Roger B. Beck

A Brief History of Ancient Astrology explores the theory and practice of astrology from Babylon to Ancient Greece and Rome and its cultural and political impact on ancient societies.

Genres: Astrology, History, Religion, Nonfiction, Ancient History

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very useful. Wish I had read this sooner as it dispelled some of my mental fog about the subject. Easier than wading through hundreds of pages of 19th-century French (if you know ancient astrology, you know who I'm talking about).

[DeanJean · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book probes both the history, the positive attributes and restraints of ancient astrology, and hints at why it was inevitable that astrology would shed its wishy-washy, fatalistic nature and resurface as a modern psychological tool for self-understanding. However the amount of ancient astro-lingo got in my way of enjoying this as an introductory book, so I'm giving this book 3.5/5 stars.

[Larisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book informational, good for beginners interested in Ancient Astrology. I didn't know much about ancient nor modern astrology, yet I feel as I have learned quite a lot about both.

However, I did find the last 3 chapters a bit dragging this I simply leafed over them. Besides that, I recommend this book.

[Tonya Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haven't Reed yet

[George Araman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting facts

[John Boardley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very brief but surprisingly comprehensive history of Astrology. Excellently written and a great starting point for further research.

[Sebastian · Rating 1 out of 5]

A terrible book in every conceivable way. Even for a brief history it could have been so much better. Wastes too much time in describing how astrology worked instead of doing what the title suggests: describing the historical developments of ancient astrology, something which is mostly ignored.
He would rather claim that astrology is wrong instead of writing about most examples of its usage, probably because it would prove he and his peers wrong in their assumption of astrology being false. In fact one of the few charts he comments upon is from the medieval period (in 621 on the Islamic nation) instead of antiquity.
He knows about Gauquelin's Mars Effect but appears to not know that CSICOP's debunking of it was exposed as a lie by other skeptics and that there are other studies that keep confirming to this day astrology as a science that gives results (Correlation being the name of one peer reviewed journal). Of course in all likelihood the author knows about this but is lying.
This book is just a reminder of how utterly incompetent, dishonest and corrupt academia is. The reader in most cases will be deceived about the true nature of ancient astrology.
The author even uses an entire chapter to explain why the history of astrology should be studied when just saying that it's a historical phenomenon is more than enough.
The author is so disingenuous that this may be a book that makes you more ignorant than before you read it.

[Katia M. Davis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can see why some people who are extremely interested in ancient astrology would find this book wonderful. However, I only wanted a brief run down and I thought (based on the title of this book) that a brief history would be a brief history. Unfortunately I found myself getting bogged down in astrological mumbo jumbo.I gave up around a third of the way through. While the topic sounds interesting to me, this book was not what I was after.