The Essential Galileo

Finocchiaro's new and revised translations have done what the Inquisition could not: they have captured an exceptional range of Galileo's career while also letting him speak—in clear English. No other volume offers more convenient or more reliable access to Galileo's own words, whether on the telescope, the Dialogue, the trial, or the mature theory of motion. —Michael H. Shank, Professor of the History of Science, University of Wisconsin–Madison