I read this book to pick up on the vibes of Shapley's personality. That's because I've recently become a fan of his. (See my reviews of The Day We Found the Universe and Through Rugged Ways to the Stars.) In this book he basically reviews the various ways in which modern science has made humans and the planet they live on less and less special or unique. We humans over time have moved, at least in our minds, from the center of the universe to being peripheral in numerous ways. Since the book was written back in the 1960s it doesn't contain the latest cutting edge findings of science. Nevertheless, it adequately makes its point.

One less than serious quote from the book that shows Shapley's wit is the following:
"The freely roaming and unpoliced dinosaurs, I like to remember, had no plumbing." This quote is in the context of a discussion about humans giving up personal freedoms in exchange for the benefits of civilization.

There is a 1960s era made-for-TV animated movie based on this book and narrated by Harlow Shapley. It goes by the same title as the book and is available for download and viewing at the following link:
http://www.moviesumo.com/Of-Stars-and-Men_20946.html ( )

Non Fiction, Science, Astronomy, Shapley (born Nashville, Mo., U.S., 1885, died Boulder, Colo., 1972) was astronomer at Mt. Wilson Observatory from 1914 to 1921, when he became director of Harvard Observatory, He devoted particular study to the structure of the universe, In 1958, helped craft the act that created NASA, the Earth is "on the outer fringe of one galaxy in a universe of millions of galaxies. Man becomes peripheral among the billions of stars in his own Milky Way; and according to the revelations of paleontology and geochemistry he is also exposed as a recent, and perhaps an ephemeral manifestation in the unrolling of cosmic time."
First Edition: Beacon Press, Boston, 1958, 8vo. vi, 157 pp., Hardcover; Elek Books, London, 1958, 8vo, 145 pp., Hardcover ( )