On a scorching July afternoon in 1878, at the dawn of the
Gilded Age, the moon’s shadow descended on the American West,
darkening skies from Montana Territory to Texas. This rare
celestial event—a total solar eclipse—offered a priceless
opportunity to solve some of the solar system’s most enduring
riddles, and it prompted a clutch of enterprising scientists to
brave the wild frontier in a grueling race to the Rocky Mountains.
Acclaimed science journalist David Baron, long fascinated by
eclipses, re-creates this epic tale of ambition, failure, and glory
in a narrative that reveals as much about the historical trajectory
of a striving young nation as it does about those scant three
minutes when the blue sky blackened and stars appeared in
mid-afternoon. In vibrant historical detail, American Eclipse
animates the fierce jockeying that came to dominate late
nineteenth-century American astronomy, bringing to life the
challenges faced by three of the most determined eclipse chasers
who participated in this adventure. James Craig Watson, virtually
forgotten in the twenty-first century, was in his day a renowned
asteroid hunter who fantasized about becoming a Gilded Age Galileo.
Hauling a telescope, a star chart, and his long-suffering wife out
west, Watson believed that he would discover Vulcan, a hypothesized
"intra-Mercurial" planet hidden in the sun’s brilliance. No less
determined was Vassar astronomer Maria Mitchell, who—in an era
when women’s education came under fierce attack—fought to
demonstrate that science and higher learning were not anathema to
femininity. Despite obstacles erected by the male-dominated
astronomical community, an indifferent government, and careless
porters, Mitchell courageously charged west with a contingent of
female students intent on observing the transcendent phenomenon for
themselves. Finally, Thomas Edison—a young inventor and
irrepressible showman—braved the wilderness to prove himself to
the scientific community. Armed with his newest invention, the
tasimeter, and pursued at each stop by throngs of reporters, Edison
sought to leverage the eclipse to cement his place in history. What
he learned on the frontier, in fact, would help him illuminate the
world. With memorable accounts of train robberies and Indian
skirmishes, David Baron’s page-turning drama refracts
nineteenth-century science through the mythologized age of the Wild
West, revealing a history no less fierce and fantastical.
General
Imprint: |
W W Norton & Co Inc
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
February 2024 |
Authors: |
David Baron
|
Dimensions: |
210 x 140mm (L x W) |
Pages: |
352 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-324-09469-2 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
1-324-09469-9 |
Barcode: |
9781324094692 |
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!