Competent Book on a Very Specialized Subject
"Exploring the Kingdom of Saturn" is a review of "Latium," a book by the famous 17th-century Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher (that's his face on the cover). Kircher was an early scientist... who was wrong about almost everything. (His works do have nice illustrations though.) What makes him interesting is that he worked at the very dawn of science, when people were still trying to figure out how to do science. Still, I'm surprised that someone wrote an entire book on this particular minor work of his; I think a long essay would probably have been sufficient.
While competent, this book is far too specialized for most people (including, as it turned out, me). I'd only recommend it in three cases:
a) You have a strong interest in the history of early science in general
b) You have a strong interest in Athanasius Kircher in particular
c) You have a strong interest in chorography (the description of the topography and antiquities of small areas, as for example county histories).
