{"product_id":"the-martians-the-true-story-of-an-alien-craze-that-captured-turn-of-the-century-america","title":"The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America","description":"A TIME BEST BOOK OF 2025: \"A completely true look at America’s infatuation with aliens at the turn of the 20th century that feels like it could be science fiction . . . The Martians is not only a captivating look at recent history, but also a poignant cautionary tale, offering hard-to-ignore parallels between the alien enthusiasts of the Gilded Age and the conspiracy theorists of today.\"\n\nA NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR\nLonglisted for the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Nonfiction\nNamed one of the Best Books of the Year by Science News, Boston Globe, Library Journal, Reactor, Bookreporter, PopMatters, Colorado Public Radio, and the Chicago Public Library\nNew York TimesBook Review • Editors' Choice\nLiterary Hub • 10 Best-Reviewed Nonfiction Books of 2025\nThe Information • 20 Great Books to Read Over the Holidays 2025\nChristian Science Monitor • 10 Best Books of August\nA Westword holiday book recommendation\n\nLong before NASA began contemplating a visit to our neighboring world, a turn-of-the-century Mars craze invaded the public’s imagination, here thrillingly retold in David Baron’s The Martians. “There is Life on the Planet Mars” ―New York Times, December 9, 1906\n\nThis New York Times headline was no joke.\n\nIn the early 1900s, many Americans actually believed we had discovered intelligent life on Mars, as best-selling science writer David Baron chronicles in The Martians, his truly bizarre tale of a nation swept up in Mars mania.\n\nAt the center of Baron’s historical drama is Percival Lowell, the Boston Brahmin and Harvard scion, who observed “canals” etched into the surface of Mars. Lowell devised a grand theory that the red planet was home to a utopian society that had built gargantuan ditches to funnel precious meltwater from the polar icecaps to desert farms and oasis cities. The public fell in love with the ambitious amateur astronomer who shared his findings in speeches and wildly popular books.\n\nWhile at first people treated the Martians whimsically―Martians headlining Broadway shows, biologists speculating whether they were winged or gilled―the discussion quickly became serious. Inventor Nikola Tesla announced he had received radio signals from Mars; Alexander Graham Bell agreed there was “no escape from the conviction” that intelligent beings inhabited the planet. Martian excitement reached its zenith when Lowell financed an expedition to photograph Mars from Chile’s Atacama Desert, resulting in what newspapers hailed as proof of the Martian canals’ existence.\n\nTriumph quickly yielded to tragedy. Those wild claims and highly speculative photographs emboldened Lowell’s critics, whose withering attacks gathered steam and eventually wrecked the man and his theory―but not the fervor he had started. Although Lowell would die discredited and delusional in 1916, the Mars frenzy spurred a nascent literary genre called science fiction, and the world’s sense of its place in the universe would never be the same.\n\nToday, the red planet maintains its grip on the public’s imagination. Many see Mars as civilization’s destiny―the first step toward our becoming an interplanetary species―but, as David Baron demonstrates, this tendency to project our hopes onto the world next door is hardly new. The Martians is a scintillating and necessary reminder that while we look to Mars for answers, what we often find are mirrors of ourselves.\n\n101 illustrations\u003cbr\u003eASIN: 1324090669\u003cbr\u003eVSKU: DBV.1324090669.VG\u003cbr\u003eCondition: Very Good\u003cbr\u003eAuthor\/Artist:Baron, David\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eNote:\u003c\/b\u003e Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition Notes\u003c\/b\u003e: Pages are clean with no markings. May show minor signs of wear or cosmetic defects  marks, cuts, bends, or scuffs  on the cover, spine, pages, or dust jacket. May have remainder marks on edges.  \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Dream Books Co.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41627965554746,"sku":"DBV.1324090669.VG","price":12.03,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0555\/6011\/0138\/files\/1324090669-0.jpg?v=1788319925","url":"https:\/\/shop.dreambooksco.com\/products\/the-martians-the-true-story-of-an-alien-craze-that-captured-turn-of-the-century-america","provider":"Dream Books Co.","version":"1.0","type":"link"}