The book by the authoritative British scientist John Dreyer is dedicated to the history of astronomy from ancient times to the 17th century. The author traces the evolution of ideas about the structure of the Universe, starting with the views of the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians and Greeks, illuminates the cosmological theories of Thales, Anaximander, Parmenides and other Greek natural philosophers, introduces the teachings of the Pythagoreans and the ideas of Plato. Dreyer describes in detail the theory of concentric planetary spheres of Eudoxus and Calippus and the geocentric system of the universe of Ptolemy. Next, the author examines the scientific views of medieval scientists of the West and East, the ideas of Nicholas of Cusa, Regiomontanus, Calcagnini and other thinkers of the Renaissance and concludes his exhaustive work with a presentation of the theories of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe and Kepler.