Product Description
In the scorching summer of 1878, with the Gilded Age in its infancy, three tenacious and brilliant scientists raced to Wyoming and Colorado to observe a rare total solar eclipse. One sought to discover a new planet. Another—an adventuresome female astronomer—fought to prove that science was not anathema to femininity. And a young, megalomaniacal inventor, with the tabloid press fast on his heels, sought to test his scientific bona fides and light the world through his revelations. David Baron brings to three-dimensional life these three competitors—James Craig Watson, Maria Mitchell, and Thomas Edison—and thrillingly re-creates the fierce jockeying of nineteenth-century American astronomy. With spellbinding accounts of train robberies and Indian skirmishes, the mythologized age of the last days of the Wild West comes alive as never before. A magnificent portrayal of America's dawn as a scientific superpower, American Eclipse depicts a young nation that looked to the skies to reveal its towering ambition and expose its latent genius.
Reviews/Praise
"[Yen's] animated and expressive reading enlivens the details and the magical lure of seeing a total eclipse." —Booklist Audio Review
"As America again prepares to experience solar totality, Baron transports us to a remarkable moment that brought a nation together to witness the wonders of the heavens." —Booklist Starred Review
"A timely, energetic combination of social and scientific history in anticipation of the total solar eclipse predicted for Aug. 21, 2017." —Kirkus
"David Baron contracted an incurable case of 'umbraphilia' twenty years ago in Aruba. Fortunately for readers, Baron's fever stokes his account of the first great American eclipse, in 1878, while priming us for the next one-and the next, and the next." —Dava Sobel, author of The Glass Universe
"Total eclipses of the Sun are among the most wondrous spectacles in the heavens. With American Eclipse, David Baron beautifully captures the awe, the magic, and the mystery of one particular eclipse, an event in 1878 that spurred on America to embrace the sciences. A superb contribution to the history of astronomy." —Marcia Bartusiak, author of The Day We Found the Universe
"This is a wonderful, dramatic piece of scientific history, and a fine companion for eclipses to come." —Shelf Awareness