Book Review : De ontdekkers van de hemel, David Baneke (ISBN 9789035136885, Prometheus)

Bought this book after reading about it in the magazine of the Nederlandse Natuurkunde Vereniging. It is written by a Dutch historian specialised in the history of science. The title of the book refers to the famous book of Harry Mulish, de ontdekking van de hemel. It describes astronomy in The Netherlands in the nineteenth and twentieth century and tries to discover why Dutch astronomy was so successful. This is not really a book for the general public because the subject is probably not of general interest. A large part of the world will not care about the success of Dutch astronomy. But if you find astronomy interesting and also would like to understand what are factors that make research successful then this book might be for you. The Netherlands are a small country and have a limited budget to fund research compared to large countries like the US. It is therefore quite surprising That Dutch astronomy has been at the forefront of research for over a century. As can be expected, the success cannot be attributed to one single factor but is the result of a mixture of circumstances. That objective of the book is not so interesting in my opinion but it gives a good high level overview of the astronomical research topics covered and the people involved. If you are interested in scientific details then this book is not the right choice. It is a history book covering a very small part of human activity in one country and in one century. I knew some of the famous Dutch astronomers by name but was not aware of what they worked on and certainly didn’t know their role in the management of Dutch astronomy. One thing I learned that came as a complete surprise is that the famous Herzsprung spent a large part of his career in The Netherlands and his fame played an important role in attracting talented students. The book is written in a matter of factly way which I found less engaging. I would only recommend this book to people who are interested in the history of science in The Netherlands and astronomy. But this is not because it is a bad book but because of the topic it deals with.