As a graduate in experimental nuclear physics (MSc, also now a retiree of 65), I read Prof. Weinberg's The First Three Minutes, and Dreams of a Final Theory, when I was actively working in the field of nuclear engineering. I bought the author's three volume books on the QED, and, of course, this book too, because of his mathematically rigorous descriptions of theoretical models of Nature. Because I have also read Prof. Andrei Linde's "Particle Physics and Inflationary Cosmology," I have wondered if Prof. Weinberg also writes something about "Consciousness," but no mention of it, maybe simply because "Consciousness" cannot be put on a mathematically rigorous basis as yet. What I have confirmed from this book is Prof. Weinberg is, apparently, mathematically rigorous a Materialist.
We know that there are many Dualists in the field of parapsychology, John Beloff, for example. I can understand these Dualists' position; they cannot deny the existence of Non-physical Realm as well as Physical Realm, both based on their convincing facts. But from my point of view, these Dualists are dualists because they cannot deny the existence of at least One Objective Physical Realm, i.e. our Universe. How can we, conscious Egos, (not the Unconscious) deny it! Maybe, our Universe was created as explained in this book, or as in Genesis, for example. However, we also have "Psychical Knowledge" given by the non-physical entity "Seth" through the trance-channeling of the late American writer-poet Jane Roberts (1929-1984); the knowledge tells us, the conscious Egos, that "Consciousness" is the origin of everything!

How do modern scientists form a basis for their research? "Cosmology" is a complete and comprehensive manual to anyone who is curious about he functions of this science and wants to learn more. Covering countless topics in nearly six hundred pages, such as microwave background polarization, leptogenesis, multifield inflation, and others, "Cosmology" is an ideal text for students. Enhanced with appendices containing formulas, glossaries, and more, "Cosmology" is almost a science college course on its own. A top pick for college library science collections.

Wow! This is the first review of the book in the whole of internet (had reviewed it in the amazon.co.uk website). I got a copy of Steven Weinberg's Cosmology two months back though Amazon and am happy! Reminds me of the day back in early 2000 when I pre-ordered Weinberg's Supersymmetry and the day I got it was full of intellectual thrills. All the other texts had a very superficial treatment of Supersymmetry and this was also the case with Cosmology - until now, when the biggest physicist in the post-world-war-2 era wrote on the subject!

Any review of Weinberg's texts is far from complete without having to say something about the Preface. The reader will remember the preface of his book on Gravitation and Cosmology where Weinberg tells us how dissatisfied he was with the usual approach to studying Gravitation and how he sees General Relativity as a consequence of constraints imposed by the quantum theory of massless Spin-2 particles. The reason for Weinberg to write the texts on Quantum Field Theory was also spelled out in the preface - he wanted to address a deep question: "Why Quantum Fields?". In the preface of this book, the author tells us that he wanted to share his experience of learning the latest development of Cosmology, since lots has happened in this area recently. Plus of course, he indirectly (and correctly!) points out how incomplete the usual review articles on Cosmology are.

That indeed is true! And this book precisely will help the reader in learning Cosmology in a way where equations are actually derived and not just mentioned with a reference. Usual treatment of cosmology is vague and superficial and in this text the reader will find not only the full derivation but also good explanations.

The book can be divided in 2 parts. In Chapters 1-4 the reader is introduced to topics ranging from the Robertson-Walker metric to the expanding universe to inflation. The reader has to be familiar with General Relativity to start reading this book. There is a small Appendix in the book on GR: however it should be seen as a write-up for establishing conventions. The remainder of the book (Chapters 5-10) consider advanced topics such as anisotropies, growth of structure and multi-field inflation. Weinberg mentions that he did not want to cover speculative topics and this seems to make sense for such a book. (Though I would have loved a section on the Cosmic Anthropic Principle)

To summarize, this is simply the best reference for Cosmology and Weinberg has once again written a text, noboby else could have.

This isn't a review, but here's the table of contents from the publisher's webpage:

1. The Expansion of the Universe
2. The Cosmic Microwave Radiation Background
3. The Early Universe
4. Inflation
5. General Theory of Cosmological Fluctuations
6. Evolution of Cosmological Fluctuations
7. Anisotropies in the Microwave Sky
8. The Growth of Structure
9. Gravitational Lensing
10. Fluctuations from Inflation

Appendices
A. Some Useful Numbers
B. Review of General Relativity
C. Energy Transfer Between Radiation and Electrons
D. The Ergodic Theorem
E. Gaussian Distributions
F. Newtonian Cosmology
G. Photon Polarization
H. The Relativistic Boltzmann Equation
Notation
Glossary of Symbols
Assorted Problems