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Conversations with Carl Sagan
Though a well-regarded physicist, Carl Sagan (1934-1996) is best-known as a writer of popular nonfiction and science fiction and as the host of the PBS series Cosmos. Through his writings and spoken commentary, he worked to popularize interests in astronomy, the universe, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life. From the beginning of his public career, when he co-wrote Intelligent Life in the Universe to the very end as he worked on the 1997 film adaptation of his novel Contact, these subjects absorbed him.
This interest in space was rooted in his understanding of the smallness and vulnerability of humanity measured against the immense size and power of the universe. This profound philosophical humility, mixed with personal exuberance, comes through in Conversations with Carl Sagan. In interviews and profiles, Sagan discusses with verve a wide variety of topicsthe environment, nuclear disarmament, religion, politics, extraterrestrial life, astronomy, physics, robotics. Whether he is discussing his science fiction or his well-researched nonfiction works, his voice embraces reason and skepticism.
This volume shows how Sagan, a lifelong skeptic, refined his views and expressed amazement that Earth, for all his belief in extraterrestrial life, encompasses everything about which he cared.
Tom Head of Jackson, Mississippi, is a writer and poet whose work includes Women and Families (Voices from the Civil War), Possessions and Exorcisms (Fact or Fiction?), and 1966 (The Turbulent 60s).
167 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2005
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About the author
Carl Sagan
171 books12.8k followersIn 1934, scientist Carl Sagan was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. After earning bachelor and master's degrees at Cornell, Sagan earned a double doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1960. He became professor of astronomy and space science and director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University, and co-founder of the Planetary Society. A great popularizer of science, Sagan produced the PBS series, "Cosmos," which was Emmy and Peabody award-winning, and was watched by 500 million people in 60 countries. A book of the same title came out in 1980, and was on The New York Times bestseller list for 7 weeks. Sagan was author, co-author or editor of 20 books, including The Dragons of Eden (1977), which won a Pulitzer, Pale Blue Dot (1995) and The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark (1996), his hardest-hitting on religion. With his wife, Ann Druyan, he was co-producer of the popular motion picture, "Contact," which featured a feminist, atheist protagonist played by Jodie Foster (1997). The film came out after Sagan's death, following a 2-year struggle with a bone marrow disease. Sagan played a leading role in NASA's Mariner, Viking, Voyager, and Galileo expeditions to other planets. Ann Druyan, in the epilogue to Sagan's last book, Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium (published posthumously in 1997), gives a moving account of Carl's last days: "Contrary to the fantasies of the fundamentalists, there was no deathbed conversion, no last minute refuge taken in a comforting vision of a heaven or an afterlife. For Carl, what mattered most was what was true, not merely what would make us feel better. Even at this moment when anyone would be forgiven for turning away from the reality of our situation, Carl was unflinching. As we looked deeply into each other's eyes, it was with a shared conviction that our wondrous life together was ending forever."
For his work, Dr. Sagan received the NASA medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and (twice) for Distinguished Public Service, as well as the NASA Apollo Achievement Award. Asteroid 2709 Sagan is named after him. He was also awarded the John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award of the American Astronautical Society, the Explorers Club 75th Anniversary Award, the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Medal of the Soviet Cosmonauts Federation, and the Masursky Award of the American Astronomical Society, ("for his extraordinary contributions to the development of planetary science…As a scientist trained in both astronomy and biology, Dr. Sagan has made seminal contributions to the study of planetary atmospheres, planetary surfaces, the history of the Earth, and exobiology. Many of the most productive planetary scientists working today are his present and former students and associates").
He was also a recipient of the Public Welfare Medal, the highest award of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Sagan was elected Chairman of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society, President of the Planetology Section of the American Geophysical Union, and Chairman of the Astronomy Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. For twelve years he was the editor-in-chief of Icarus, the leading professional journal devoted to planetary research. He was cofounder and President of the Planetary Society, a 100,000-member organization that is the largest space-interest group in the world; and Distinguished Visiting Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.
In their posthumous award to Dr. Sagan of their highest honor, the National Science Foundation declared that his "research transformed planetary science… his gifts to mankind were infinite." D. 1996.
More: https://ffrf.org/news/day/dayitems/it...
For his work, Dr. Sagan received the NASA medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and (twice) for Distinguished Public Service, as well as the NASA Apollo Achievement Award. Asteroid 2709 Sagan is named after him. He was also awarded the John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award of the American Astronautical Society, the Explorers Club 75th Anniversary Award, the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Medal of the Soviet Cosmonauts Federation, and the Masursky Award of the American Astronomical Society, ("for his extraordinary contributions to the development of planetary science…As a scientist trained in both astronomy and biology, Dr. Sagan has made seminal contributions to the study of planetary atmospheres, planetary surfaces, the history of the Earth, and exobiology. Many of the most productive planetary scientists working today are his present and former students and associates").
He was also a recipient of the Public Welfare Medal, the highest award of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Sagan was elected Chairman of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society, President of the Planetology Section of the American Geophysical Union, and Chairman of the Astronomy Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. For twelve years he was the editor-in-chief of Icarus, the leading professional journal devoted to planetary research. He was cofounder and President of the Planetary Society, a 100,000-member organization that is the largest space-interest group in the world; and Distinguished Visiting Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.
In their posthumous award to Dr. Sagan of their highest honor, the National Science Foundation declared that his "research transformed planetary science… his gifts to mankind were infinite." D. 1996.
More: https://ffrf.org/news/day/dayitems/it...
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
February 15, 2014
notable Sagan quotes:
"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."
"It's the truth: everything is connected."
"...where religions teach us that we must accept, without challenge, a body of tradition, such religions are doing a very serious disservice to the human future. I think the only way to survive the next fifty years will be by seriously challenging the conventional beliefs--not just in religion, but especially in economics, social structure, and politics. If we're taught...that we must not challenge the conventional perceptions, we'll never get from here to there."
"It's a thing that Jefferson laid great stress on. It wasn't enough, he said, to enshrine some rights in a Constitution or a Bill of Rights. The people had to be educated and they had to practice their skepticism and their education. Otherwise we don't run the government: the government runs us."
"Every moment, every inanimate object, to say nothing of the exquisite complexity of living beings...You imagine missing it all and suddenly it's so much more precious."
"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."
"It's the truth: everything is connected."
"...where religions teach us that we must accept, without challenge, a body of tradition, such religions are doing a very serious disservice to the human future. I think the only way to survive the next fifty years will be by seriously challenging the conventional beliefs--not just in religion, but especially in economics, social structure, and politics. If we're taught...that we must not challenge the conventional perceptions, we'll never get from here to there."
"It's a thing that Jefferson laid great stress on. It wasn't enough, he said, to enshrine some rights in a Constitution or a Bill of Rights. The people had to be educated and they had to practice their skepticism and their education. Otherwise we don't run the government: the government runs us."
"Every moment, every inanimate object, to say nothing of the exquisite complexity of living beings...You imagine missing it all and suddenly it's so much more precious."
October 26, 2011
Carl Sagan was a down to earth, everyday man who was also a genius in the field of planetary science. He encouraged the common person to look up and ask questions about the Universe around us, and in doing that, to explore the world around us. He made science attainable to everyone. This is a book containing interviews with Sagan from his time working with the Viking lander to his television series Cosmos to his final days bringing his novel Contact to the big screen. You really get a sense of how Sagan's thought process worked because you can see its consistency from interview to interview, very methodical and scientific yet filled with a child's enthusiasm and wonder. His imagination is what made us love him.
I can remember watching him on PBS as a kid, always so excited to see his program Cosmos with that introductory music that I will forever associate with Carl Sagan. Even though I usually fell asleep because his voice was so soothing, I had found a lifelong love for the stars and a curiosity for how the universe works. As an adult, I enjoy being an amateur radio astronomer and listening to the sounds of space. I credit Carl Sagan for my interest and I pass it on to my own kids. Who knows, maybe one of us will discover a Supernova and get to name it. With Sagan gone, we now follow Michio Kaku, Brian Cox, deGrasse, Suskind and other theoretical scientists who share their insights and excitement for the cosmos. Sagan was the father of bringing the Universe into our living rooms, and I am pleased to see today we have a Science channel devoted to teaching people to be curious, to explore, to ask questions, and to understand. I think he would have been thrilled by that. I miss having Carl Sagan in the world. This is a wonderful book for any Sagan enthusiast to have on their shelf.
I can remember watching him on PBS as a kid, always so excited to see his program Cosmos with that introductory music that I will forever associate with Carl Sagan. Even though I usually fell asleep because his voice was so soothing, I had found a lifelong love for the stars and a curiosity for how the universe works. As an adult, I enjoy being an amateur radio astronomer and listening to the sounds of space. I credit Carl Sagan for my interest and I pass it on to my own kids. Who knows, maybe one of us will discover a Supernova and get to name it. With Sagan gone, we now follow Michio Kaku, Brian Cox, deGrasse, Suskind and other theoretical scientists who share their insights and excitement for the cosmos. Sagan was the father of bringing the Universe into our living rooms, and I am pleased to see today we have a Science channel devoted to teaching people to be curious, to explore, to ask questions, and to understand. I think he would have been thrilled by that. I miss having Carl Sagan in the world. This is a wonderful book for any Sagan enthusiast to have on their shelf.
February 6, 2025
When I began trying to build my own worldview back in 2006, Carl Sagan’s books were instrumental in giving me a scientific orientation — and a scientific education. By the time he first appeared on the blog (November 2007), I was a rapacious enough fan that I’d read the overwhelming majority of his pop-sci books. For those who missed his time in the sun( he died rather young, weakened by a rare blood disease), Sagan was an astronomer and prominent science advocate who featured in the PBS show Cosmos, still an extraordinary watch today. When I spotted this book I had to give it a try: Conversations is a collection of interview transcripts with Sagan ranging from the seventies to May 1996, months before he died: they range, too, in tone and depth, as sometimes Sagan can go into more technical details (when being interviewed by science magazines) but on other occasion it’s similarly casual, as with his interviews on the Charlie Rose show.
Several things popped out at me while reading this: first, Sagan’s scientific versatility, as he had training in biology and chemistry and in fact did his astronomical work in that vein — trying to identify chemical compounds from the Voyager data. Two, although I’ve often heard that Sagan was poo-pooed by the scientific establishment for being a popularizer, these interviews also demonstrate that Sagan’s tendency to speculate and think out loud in public — on air, in columns, etc — grated them. They wanted him to do his imagination work in the presence of his peers, not the public — despite the fact that his charisma and imagination excited the public, too, and made him into a rare celebrity-scientist. Sagan used his high profile to advocate for better science education — no more football coaches teaching chemistry, please, and focus on the lab instead of textbooks — as well as speak on public policy issues that needed to be informed by science, like global warming and ozone damage. Sagan was particularly frustrated by the fact that, after the Cold War was over, the American government continued to sink so much of its GDP into the military instead of focusing on problems or investing in the future. Those familiar with Sagan won’t find any surprises here, especially not if they’ve read books like Pale Blue Dot and The Demon-Haunted World: the latter third of the book is dominated by interviews that were inspired by book launches there.
Although most of this was familiar content to me, it was nice to revisit Sagan after so long.
Several things popped out at me while reading this: first, Sagan’s scientific versatility, as he had training in biology and chemistry and in fact did his astronomical work in that vein — trying to identify chemical compounds from the Voyager data. Two, although I’ve often heard that Sagan was poo-pooed by the scientific establishment for being a popularizer, these interviews also demonstrate that Sagan’s tendency to speculate and think out loud in public — on air, in columns, etc — grated them. They wanted him to do his imagination work in the presence of his peers, not the public — despite the fact that his charisma and imagination excited the public, too, and made him into a rare celebrity-scientist. Sagan used his high profile to advocate for better science education — no more football coaches teaching chemistry, please, and focus on the lab instead of textbooks — as well as speak on public policy issues that needed to be informed by science, like global warming and ozone damage. Sagan was particularly frustrated by the fact that, after the Cold War was over, the American government continued to sink so much of its GDP into the military instead of focusing on problems or investing in the future. Those familiar with Sagan won’t find any surprises here, especially not if they’ve read books like Pale Blue Dot and The Demon-Haunted World: the latter third of the book is dominated by interviews that were inspired by book launches there.
Although most of this was familiar content to me, it was nice to revisit Sagan after so long.
May 4, 2012
Fun stuff, but got incredibly repetitive halfway through. Guess that's more a failing on the interviewers' part than on this book. Sagan also developed a predictable group of rote responses by the end, but I can't blame him for getting a little tired of always having to field gems along the lines of "Do you believe in UFOs?" and "Is the government lying to us about UFOs?" and "Do you believe in God?" and "Space is, like, really big, right?" My favorite interview was the one where someone followed Sagan as he went to a screening of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and then critiqued it from a hard-ish science point of view. Why couldn't there be more stuff like that? Personally, I was more interested in hearing Sagan's thoughts on the process of writing or what kind of movies/books/music he liked or what his favorite John Carter stories were, but again, I didn't get to ask any of the questions.
May 13, 2013
I had originally thought this book would be more of a one-on-one long form interview with Sagan, but it turned out to be just a collection of interviews done by magazines or radio stations. That was a bit disappointing for me as I was hoping for something more personal and deep. Sagan was often asked the same questions in the interviews (thoughts on religion, UFO's, global warming, etc.), so I found a lot of repetition throughout the book. Many of the topics are also covered in Sagan's own books (where he obviously gets into much more detail), so I didn't really get anything new from most of the interviews. I enjoyed the last interview the best, especially the anecdote about Sagan interrogating the exterminator on the structural diagram of the molecule used in the chemical spray. A true skeptic!
November 26, 2013
Insigthful, brain-teasing, inspirational and compelling...
May 31, 2018
I don't think that "revere" is too strong a word for how I feel about Carl Sagan. But this collection of interviews and magazine articles was annoyingly repetitive. The same topics were covered with verbatim language multiple times. Maybe Sagan really didn't talk about much else or in other terms but if he did, then I wish the editor would have substituted in some of that content. Also the introduction of Sagan at the beginning of each intro or article contained the same content over and over. Sure, I am very glad that at the time, those kind and accurate introductions were made, but in this format it came across like a student trying to fluff up the length of an essay. Nevertheless, Sagan's messages were captured loud and clear here. I've been rewatching Cosmos every 2-3 years since my high school physics teacher first introduced my class to it. That is really saying something for me because 1) repetition drives me crazy and 2) I generally don't like old things (old music, old movies, old TV, old fashion, etc). Even now with the Cosmos reboot that has been out a few years, I still prefer the original, which is out of character for someone who prefers modernly-produced covers of Beatles songs.
In short, I suggest just picking up some of Sagan's books.
In short, I suggest just picking up some of Sagan's books.
January 28, 2019
Good interviews/articles, but somewhat repetitive. If you haven't seen the Charlie Rose episodes or listened to Science Friday then its better. Talks a lot about aliens/UFO for 70's when he wrote the Cosmic Connection and Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark in 1996.
November 10, 2020
An excellent collection of interviews. Repetions of the same answers are much fewer than my fellow reviewer claims: conversations with Carl Sagan are definitely worth reading and do not cease to captivate until the very last of them.
May 10, 2023
- Trained in astronomy, physics, biology and genetics, Sagan lives with his wife and three children in Ithaca, New York, where he is director of Cornell University's Laboratory for Planetary Studies. In that laboratory we sat down one snowy January morning to talk
January 19, 2021
"We're all from the stars."⠀
How romantic.
How romantic.
July 10, 2021
Audiobook this one.
August 26, 2016
Cuando Asimov le escribía en una carta a Sagan que "cuando te leo es como si te estuviera oyendo" no le faltaba ni un ápice de razón. Leer las palabras de Sagan transcritas de distintas entrevistas que tuvo a lo largo de casi 30 años es como leer extractos de sus libros, llenan de emoción, conocimiento, asombro por el mundo, por nosotros mismos. Leer u oír a Sagan es como un elogio a lo que la existencia puede dar de sí. Y como siempre cosas descubiertas (sí que vivió lo suficiente como para ver el descubrimiento de unos pocos exoplanetas, por ejemplo, cuando pensaba que no). Voy a seguir con este gran ser humano.
July 23, 2015
Only three stars because, so much material is effectively repeated. The content is great, but as there are a collection of interviews for each of his projects, each interview is pretty similar right down to the questions. I am sure there are far more interesting interviews with one of the greatest minds ever to live than show up in this book.
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May 20, 2015Science-Fiction
December 16, 2015
Carl Sagan is the book that I read. I rated it a 3 because I am not a fan of Science but the book was good. It was about Sagan's life and how he became and what he liked about Science.
May 16, 2016
As others have mentioned, there is a fair amount of repeated questions and answers. However, this is still an amazing collection of interviews and profiles.
March 21, 2015
Fantastic book. Sagan's personality and humanity come out when reading these interviews.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews