| |
| |
| List of Illustrations | |
| |
| |
| Acknowledgments | |
| |
| |
| Introduction | |
| |
| |
| Shared Culture, Separate Spaces | |
| |
| |
| High and Low Culture | |
| |
| |
| The Verbal and Visual in Popular Culture | |
| |
| |
| The Culture of Comets | |
| |
| |
| |
| Signs of the Times | |
| |
| |
| |
| Ancient Signs | |
| |
| |
| Physical Theories of Comets | |
| |
| |
| Tokens of Doom | |
| |
| |
| Political Messages and Means | |
| |
| |
| |
| Monsters and the Messiah | |
| |
| |
| Popular and Patristic Views of Comets | |
| |
| |
| Monsters and Their Messages | |
| |
| |
| Monstrous Comets in Scripture | |
| |
| |
| Star of Bethlehem, Herald of Judgment | |
| |
| |
| Time of the End | |
| |
| |
| Reformation in Religion | |
| |
| |
| |
| Divination | |
| |
| |
| Color | |
| |
| |
| Conjunctions | |
| |
| |
| Passage through Zodiac and Prominent Constellations | |
| |
| |
| Astrological Houses and Cardinal Orientations | |
| |
| |
| Pointing of Tail | |
| |
| |
| Position of Nucleus | |
| |
| |
| Shapes and Sizes | |
| |
| |
| Motion | |
| |
| |
| Duration | |
| |
| |
| Historical Induction | |
| |
| |
| |
| Portents and Politics | |
| |
| |
| In Streets and Alehouses | |
| |
| |
| God on Their Side | |
| |
| |
| Prophecies and Propaganda | |
| |
| |
| |
| Natural Causes | |
| |
| |
| |
| From Natural Signs to Proximate Causes | |
| |
| |
| New Attitudes toward Nature and the Recovery of Classical Science | |
| |
| |
| Aristotle and Terrestrial Corruption | |
| |
| |
| Ptolemy and the Power of Mars | |
| |
| |
| Stepping-StOnes from Symptoms to Causes | |
| |
| |
| Critics and Strategies | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Decline of Cometary Divination | |
| |
| |
| Astronomical Reforms | |
| |
| |
| Epistemological Critics | |
| |
| |
| Shift in Priorities and Signs of Decline | |
| |
| |
| Social Reasons for the Decline | |
| |
| |
| |
| TwoRld Reformation | |
| |
| |
| |
| Comets, Transmutations, and World Reform in Newton's Thought | |
| |
| |
| Celestial Mechanics of Comets | |
| |
| |
| Pristine Truths and Political Corruption | |
| |
| |
| Transmutations and Perpetual Interchange | |
| |
| |
| Fire, Water, and a Heavenly Physiology | |
| |
| |
| "Revolutions in the Heavenly Bodies" | |
| |
| |
| Comets, Teleology, and Newton's Appropriation of Comet Lore | |
| |
| |
| |
| Halley's Comet Theory, Noah's Flood, and the End of the World | |
| |
| |
| Interest in Orbits | |
| |
| |
| Halley's Theory of the Deluge | |
| |
| |
| The End of the World | |
| |
| |
| The Benefits of Comets | |
| |
| |
| The Scientific Response | |
| |
| |
| Ecclesiastical Criticism | |
| |
| |
| Halley's Alleged Freethinking in Political Context | |
| |
| |
| The Satirists' Barbs | |
| |
| |
| |
| Comet Lore and Cosmogony | |
| |
| |
| |
| Refueling the Sun and Planets | |
| |
| |
| Circulation of Vital Matter | |
| |
| |
| Critics | |
| |
| |
| Stoking the Stellar Fires | |
| |
| |
| |
| Revolution and Evolution within the Heavens | |
| |
| |
| Come Hell or High Water | |
| |
| |
| From Creation to Cosmogony | |
| |
| |
| Concluding Remarks Popular Culture and Elite Science | |
| |
| |
| Appendix Recent Resurgence of Cometary Catastrophism | |
| |
| |
| Notes | |
| |
| |
| Bibliography | |
| |
| |
| Index | |