The Milky Way

I cannot add much to the previous review except to emphasize that this is one of the better books in astronomy available at this level. I learned a great deal reading the 4th edition when I was in high school and its organization makes reading it a pleasure. It is an excellent introduction to the structure of our galaxy and stellar astronomy. The only caveat is its age and sadly the Boks are no longer around to update it. It is better than most of the textbooks I have read on its subject. I would also recommend Berendzen, Hart, and Seeley's _Man Discovers the Galaxies_.

'The Milky Way' by Bart J. Bok and Priscilla F. Bok is a book a long time and two careers in the making. Bart Bok was a Dutch-American astronomer who taught at Harvard, then the Australia National University, and finishing his careere at the University of Arizona; he and his wife collaborated on this book in various editions, the first of which was in 1941. The last edition, the fifth, was published a generation later, in 1981 -- it was a standard text for stellar and local galactic study for undergraduate astronomy students, as well as a great text for general interest readers. The degree of information contained in the text is high, but it is presupposes no particular study beforehand; the mathematics and physics presented assume very elementary understanding, but not a high degree of familiarity.Much of astronomy consists of observations of phenomena in our own galaxies; even with our most advanced observational tools, it is difficult to get much detail out of distant galaxies. As most galaxies fall into particular patterns of overall construction, by understanding what makes up our own galaxy, we are better able to understand what happens throughout the universe.The Boks start by setting the stage with definitions, terminology, and general overviews, including nice composite photographs of the Milky Way, our home galaxy. Discussion of observational equipment and methods is also discussed here, so as to make it clear how we know what we know. Even so, this is an ever-changing field.The chapters are well-organised. Chapters include data analysis and how to recognise differences in starlight; types of stars, nearby neighbours and the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram of stars; stellar clusters, pulsars and globular clusters; overall galactic motion through rotation and other stellar movements; the nature of the nucleus of the galaxy; instellar gas and matter; unique features of a spiral galaxy like our own; and finally, galactic changes and evolution, including stellar growth and decay.This is more properly an astronomy text than an astrophysics text -- it certainly does not ignore astrophysical issues, but concentrates more on the structures and observable/observation issues -- dynamics and kinematics are not the focus here, but they are not ignored, either. The interested student will find this a good grounding from which to proceed to these more advanced topics.In 1974, at the conclusion of the fourth edition, the Boks assumed they'd likely not need to do another edition for 15 years. This estimate turned out to be very wrong, as the pace of astronomical knowledge has increased, well, astronomically. This should be a caveat to those reading the text -- if the years from 1974 to 1981 were significant enough to warrant a new edition, there are doubtless other advances between 1981 and the present. Even so, this book remains a solid introduction to many of the basic structures and concepts, presented in a very readable and user-friendly for