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The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America
“There Is Life on the Planet Mars” —New York Times, December 9, 1906
The Times headline was no joke. In the early 1900s, many Americans actually believed that we had discovered intelligent life on Mars. The Martians—a truly bizarre tale reconstructed through newly discovered clippings, letters, and photographs by bestselling science writer David Baron—begins in the 1890s with Percival Lowell, a wealthy Harvard scion who was so certain of his Mars discovery that he (almost) convinced a generation of astronomers that grainy telescopic photographs of the red planet revealed meltwater and an intricate canal system, declaring “there can be no doubt that living beings inhabit our neighboring world” (New York Times). So frenzied was the reaction that international controversies arose. Tesla announced he had received Martian radio signals. Biologists debated whether Martians were winged or gilled. Martians headlined Broadway shows, and a new genre called science fiction arose. While Lowell’s claims were savagely debunked, his influence sparked a compulsive interest in Mars and life in outer space that continues to this day.
The Times headline was no joke. In the early 1900s, many Americans actually believed that we had discovered intelligent life on Mars. The Martians—a truly bizarre tale reconstructed through newly discovered clippings, letters, and photographs by bestselling science writer David Baron—begins in the 1890s with Percival Lowell, a wealthy Harvard scion who was so certain of his Mars discovery that he (almost) convinced a generation of astronomers that grainy telescopic photographs of the red planet revealed meltwater and an intricate canal system, declaring “there can be no doubt that living beings inhabit our neighboring world” (New York Times). So frenzied was the reaction that international controversies arose. Tesla announced he had received Martian radio signals. Biologists debated whether Martians were winged or gilled. Martians headlined Broadway shows, and a new genre called science fiction arose. While Lowell’s claims were savagely debunked, his influence sparked a compulsive interest in Mars and life in outer space that continues to this day.
322 pages, Hardcover
First published August 26, 2025
196 people are currently reading
2361 people want to read
About the author
David Baron
3 books65 followersDavid Baron is an award-winning journalist and author who writes about science, nature, and the American West. Formerly a science correspondent for NPR and science editor for the public radio program The World, he has also written for The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Scientific American, and other publications. While conducting research for his latest book, THE MARTIANS, he served as the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology, Exploration, and Scientific Innovation. David is an avid eclipse chaser, and his TED Talk on the subject has been viewed more than 2 million times. An affiliate of the University of Colorado’s Center for Environmental Journalism, he lives in Boulder.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 147 reviews
November 8, 2025
Crazes..............they seem to come and go and this book takes on one of the most widespread and longest lasting. It swept like wildfire across many countries but seemed most prevalent in the United States. It divided people of all classes and professions and in the process ruined the reputations of many. It began right before the turn of the 20th century when astronomy was becoming more sophisticated and gazing at Earth's closest neighboring planet, Mars, was popular. Author H.G. Wells published The War of the World which was a huge success and the craze began.
Of course, the subject of this fascinating book is the belief in the "canals" of Mars and the presence of life on the Red Planet. One individual (who had no scientific training), Percy Lowelll, a wealthy Bostonian, became obsessed with this subject, built his own planetarium, and "discovered" the supposed canals. This led him to put forth the theory that only intelligent beings could have built these canals. The "yellow journalists (Pulitzer and Hearst) picked up this theory and milked it for all it was worth. with blazing front page headlines such as "Life On Mars Discovered". Lowell was either loved or hated for his theory and astronomers began attempting to debunk it.
What a story this is...........beautifully written, great source material, and full of information that will keep the reader interested from page one. There is just too much to put in a review, so I highly recommend this book. It is a fun read but also somewhat poignant.
Of course, the subject of this fascinating book is the belief in the "canals" of Mars and the presence of life on the Red Planet. One individual (who had no scientific training), Percy Lowelll, a wealthy Bostonian, became obsessed with this subject, built his own planetarium, and "discovered" the supposed canals. This led him to put forth the theory that only intelligent beings could have built these canals. The "yellow journalists (Pulitzer and Hearst) picked up this theory and milked it for all it was worth. with blazing front page headlines such as "Life On Mars Discovered". Lowell was either loved or hated for his theory and astronomers began attempting to debunk it.
What a story this is...........beautifully written, great source material, and full of information that will keep the reader interested from page one. There is just too much to put in a review, so I highly recommend this book. It is a fun read but also somewhat poignant.
Read
July 25, 2025Just a superb book about the history of Martians, the observations of the planet. The book focuses mainly on US pseudo astronomer Percival Lowell and his mapping of the Red Planet. Thanks to Lowell generations grew up thinking there were Canals on the planet, which in turn led to the idea that there were human like creatures who inhabited Mars, and that the canals were used to grow vegetation to feed the Martians, Lowell spend years observing the planet, and Tesla also got involved at one point in time trying to contact the planet. It is wonderfully researched and we get into the "yellow press", the building of bigger and better telescopes, H.G. Wells and his War of the Worlds book and how it was adapted for readers in New York & Boston when it came out in the 1890's. Yes, a true tour de force on our obsession with Mars, Martians, etc. This one is a fast read and one that is for me a true 5*****!!!
February 4, 2026
Let’s get this out of the way: this book is an objectively great work of historical science journalism. The author dives deep into the forgotten Martian craze of the early 20th century, when many in the scientific community truly believed there was evidence of life on Mars. There were some super interesting tidbits in here, and the topic is worthy of this level of exploration. So why the three-star rating? It’s purely a me thing. I overestimated how interested I was in this topic, and probably would have had a better time with an article or podcast episode than with a proper deep dive like this one. I think real history buffs will love this!
August 10, 2025
The Martians is a lyrical account of the Mars craze that sweeped the turn of the 20th century. From the perspectives of scientists, engineers, and visionaries with plenty of sensationalized journalism mixed in, this book provides an interesting lens into Earth's closest neighbor and the obsession that came from it.
April 13, 2026
Super kratkočasna in tudi zabavna knjiga o tem, kako so se "lažne novice" širile pred socialnimi omrežji. V središču zgodbe je ljubiteljski astronom in razvpitež Percival Lowell, ki je populariziral idejo, da so na Marsu kanali, ki so jih zgradila inteligentna bitja. Njegove teorije, ki so bile sicer najbrž bolj posledica znanstvene napake in ozkoglednosti, pa tudi Lowellove domišljavosti in trme, kot pa namerne prevare, je nato pograbilo pravkar nastajajoče rumeno časopisje in še dodatno senzacionaliziralo.
Zlasti Američani so postali nori na Mars in začeli celo vlagati znanje in denar v poskuse stika z Marsovci. Mars je prodrl tako v komične stripe kot v reklame (podjetje, ki je proizvajalo milo, je recimo naredilo oglas, po katerem bi bilo prvo sporočilo Marsovcev, če bi končno uspeli navezati stik z njimi, "pošljite nam Pears' Soap"), pa tudi v kolektivno nezavedno (pojavljali so se ljudje, ki so trdili, da so navezali stik, ali pa kar, da so sami Marsovci).
Knjiga natančno popiše 40 let utrjevanja, množične histerije in zelo počasno, potrpežljivo ovržbo ideje, ko so končno prevladali resni znanstveniki z resnejšimi znanstvenimi postopki. Baron vse skupaj opisuje izredno slikovito in tekoče, tudi zabavno, z izseki iz takratnih časopisnih novic, anekdotami in drugimi povezavami, pa tudi z obsežnim raziskovanjem pisemske in ostale zapuščine. Seveda se v zgodbi pojavijo še Nikola Tesla, nič manj razvpit od Lowella, in H. G. Wells.
Mogoče celi zgodbi manjka predvsem to, da bi avtor uzavestil tudi razredno plat zgodbe. Lowell je bil nenazadnje pripadnik brezdelne elite, zelo povezan in premožen, ki si je lahko privoščil ukvarjanje z vesoljem, predvsem pa je zlahka prišel do medijev, ki so mu še bolj zlahka verjeli, saj je bil menda uspešen podjetnik in svetovljan. Tu se primerjave z Elonom Muskom, ki je zadnje desetletje polnil novice z grandioznimi idejami o kolonizaciji Marsa, ne da bi kdo zastavil kakšno resno vprašanje, odpirajo kar same od sebe. Lowell tako ni populariziral samo raziskovanja vesolja, temveč tudi posejal že idejo o zasebni iniciativi pri tem.
Zlasti Američani so postali nori na Mars in začeli celo vlagati znanje in denar v poskuse stika z Marsovci. Mars je prodrl tako v komične stripe kot v reklame (podjetje, ki je proizvajalo milo, je recimo naredilo oglas, po katerem bi bilo prvo sporočilo Marsovcev, če bi končno uspeli navezati stik z njimi, "pošljite nam Pears' Soap"), pa tudi v kolektivno nezavedno (pojavljali so se ljudje, ki so trdili, da so navezali stik, ali pa kar, da so sami Marsovci).
Knjiga natančno popiše 40 let utrjevanja, množične histerije in zelo počasno, potrpežljivo ovržbo ideje, ko so končno prevladali resni znanstveniki z resnejšimi znanstvenimi postopki. Baron vse skupaj opisuje izredno slikovito in tekoče, tudi zabavno, z izseki iz takratnih časopisnih novic, anekdotami in drugimi povezavami, pa tudi z obsežnim raziskovanjem pisemske in ostale zapuščine. Seveda se v zgodbi pojavijo še Nikola Tesla, nič manj razvpit od Lowella, in H. G. Wells.
Mogoče celi zgodbi manjka predvsem to, da bi avtor uzavestil tudi razredno plat zgodbe. Lowell je bil nenazadnje pripadnik brezdelne elite, zelo povezan in premožen, ki si je lahko privoščil ukvarjanje z vesoljem, predvsem pa je zlahka prišel do medijev, ki so mu še bolj zlahka verjeli, saj je bil menda uspešen podjetnik in svetovljan. Tu se primerjave z Elonom Muskom, ki je zadnje desetletje polnil novice z grandioznimi idejami o kolonizaciji Marsa, ne da bi kdo zastavil kakšno resno vprašanje, odpirajo kar same od sebe. Lowell tako ni populariziral samo raziskovanja vesolja, temveč tudi posejal že idejo o zasebni iniciativi pri tem.
Want to Read
August 23, 2025WSJ review: https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/book...
(Paywalled. As always, I'm happy to email a copy to non-subscribers)
Excerpt:
"Lowell’s depictions of Martian life were pure fantasy, but they appealed to the public. ...
Lowell’s wild conjectures inspired the rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard, the science-fiction pioneer Hugo Gernsback and the astronomer Carl Sagan. Ray Bradbury, whose books include “The Martian Chronicles” (1950), paid homage to the likes of Lowell in a 1971 interview: “I think it’s part of the nature of man to start with romance and build to a reality. There’s hardly a scientist or an astronaut I’ve met who wasn’t beholden to some romantic before him who led him to doing something in life.”
I plan to take a look, when our libraries get a copy.
(Paywalled. As always, I'm happy to email a copy to non-subscribers)
Excerpt:
"Lowell’s depictions of Martian life were pure fantasy, but they appealed to the public. ...
Lowell’s wild conjectures inspired the rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard, the science-fiction pioneer Hugo Gernsback and the astronomer Carl Sagan. Ray Bradbury, whose books include “The Martian Chronicles” (1950), paid homage to the likes of Lowell in a 1971 interview: “I think it’s part of the nature of man to start with romance and build to a reality. There’s hardly a scientist or an astronaut I’ve met who wasn’t beholden to some romantic before him who led him to doing something in life.”
I plan to take a look, when our libraries get a copy.
December 30, 2025
This book is a history of what the author dubs the Mars craze. For about two decades starting just before the 20th Century, Mars was treated as inhabited. This is due in part (but not in whole) to Schiaparelli's observations, the story of which is better known than the general mania that followed.
For those years, the topic of the intelligent life on Mars was treated as conventional wisdom, and Mars and martians (once it was decided on what to call them) was treated both as accepted scientific marvel of the era and cultural product, spawning comics, plays, jokes, and other material.
At the center of this fad is Percival Lowell, amateur anthropologist turned amateur astronomer, with two streams of textile wealth (pay no attention to those picking the cotton) in his family to fund his adventures in founding astronomic institutions and explorations.
...except that it was a consensus that also was not. There never was as much of a scientific agreement with Lowell as to his observations, nor is it Lowell as the sort of lonely mis-translator that the story gets reduced to, as there were other supporters, both scientific and wackadoodle, seeing an inhabited Mars. So it is a weird situation: there is consensus without consensus.
The book reads much as a biography of Lowell, with the author injecting his own personal experiences and the tale of his investigation along the way. This does not work. To address the latter, the conclusion of the book focuses on the long tail of this enthusiasm and its positive effects in inspiring many different people towards art, science, and engineering. This journalism with internal narrativecan work, but here it does not do anything. It is not bad; it is not good.
As to the former, a focus on Lowell seems to miss the relevance of the cultural history. Real history refutes narrative, usually, so it is understandable that the culture's turn away from Lowell is not necessarily a thing of meaning, but such an understanding is not ever proposed or considered. There is a scholar who seems to come in with the last word, but I did not understand why he had the last word.
I am frustrated by it. The history is neat in its revelation of a cultural shift then reversal that we still see the legacy of each time aliens have antenna. But this is a highly relevant moment for the contemporary world. Bad science won out, then lost. How that happened is interesting as a cultural study but also as a practical matter of how to fight the anti-science perspective of the current U.S. administration. Instead, the book is more interested in personality.
The press was deeply convinced of this rightness of Martian civilization, then as quickly convinced of the silliness of it. That is the book I wanted to read. Instead, it serves up a sort of consolation prize, that we at least get some good ideas coming from the bad ones. I do not buy that.
Some sort of question of the NTD to RFK ratio...well, it is not silly, but it is dismissable as not a useful quantification. But I think that a lot got left on the table here in an attempt to understand the way that culture processes science information, and what this particularly outsized event might be able to tell us about that. And while I know that I cannot fault a book for what it is not, the fact that the argument could correlate to something like sure, COVID denial killed a lot of people in '20, and lead to the plague decade, but it got a lot of people into medicine, and someone made some neat art tracing measles rash, is, maybe, not the sort of thing that I can get too excited about.
Lots of great information, but I want a more serious study of the process of the cultural event.
For those years, the topic of the intelligent life on Mars was treated as conventional wisdom, and Mars and martians (once it was decided on what to call them) was treated both as accepted scientific marvel of the era and cultural product, spawning comics, plays, jokes, and other material.
At the center of this fad is Percival Lowell, amateur anthropologist turned amateur astronomer, with two streams of textile wealth (pay no attention to those picking the cotton) in his family to fund his adventures in founding astronomic institutions and explorations.
...except that it was a consensus that also was not. There never was as much of a scientific agreement with Lowell as to his observations, nor is it Lowell as the sort of lonely mis-translator that the story gets reduced to, as there were other supporters, both scientific and wackadoodle, seeing an inhabited Mars. So it is a weird situation: there is consensus without consensus.
The book reads much as a biography of Lowell, with the author injecting his own personal experiences and the tale of his investigation along the way. This does not work. To address the latter, the conclusion of the book focuses on the long tail of this enthusiasm and its positive effects in inspiring many different people towards art, science, and engineering. This journalism with internal narrativecan work, but here it does not do anything. It is not bad; it is not good.
As to the former, a focus on Lowell seems to miss the relevance of the cultural history. Real history refutes narrative, usually, so it is understandable that the culture's turn away from Lowell is not necessarily a thing of meaning, but such an understanding is not ever proposed or considered. There is a scholar who seems to come in with the last word, but I did not understand why he had the last word.
I am frustrated by it. The history is neat in its revelation of a cultural shift then reversal that we still see the legacy of each time aliens have antenna. But this is a highly relevant moment for the contemporary world. Bad science won out, then lost. How that happened is interesting as a cultural study but also as a practical matter of how to fight the anti-science perspective of the current U.S. administration. Instead, the book is more interested in personality.
The press was deeply convinced of this rightness of Martian civilization, then as quickly convinced of the silliness of it. That is the book I wanted to read. Instead, it serves up a sort of consolation prize, that we at least get some good ideas coming from the bad ones. I do not buy that.
Some sort of question of the NTD to RFK ratio...well, it is not silly, but it is dismissable as not a useful quantification. But I think that a lot got left on the table here in an attempt to understand the way that culture processes science information, and what this particularly outsized event might be able to tell us about that. And while I know that I cannot fault a book for what it is not, the fact that the argument could correlate to something like sure, COVID denial killed a lot of people in '20, and lead to the plague decade, but it got a lot of people into medicine, and someone made some neat art tracing measles rash, is, maybe, not the sort of thing that I can get too excited about.
Lots of great information, but I want a more serious study of the process of the cultural event.
June 27, 2025
Book Review: The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America by David Baron
David Baron’s The Martians is a captivating excavation of a forgotten cultural moment when America collectively hallucinated intelligent life on Mars—and in doing so, revealed more about human nature than extraterrestrial reality. As a woman and scholar of science communication, I was struck by how Baron frames this historical episode not as mere pseudoscientific folly, but as a lens for examining societal anxieties, class dynamics, and the seductive power of narrative. The book’s central figure, Percival Lowell—the aristocratic astronomer whose “canal” theories ignited Mars mania—emerges as a tragic emblem of how privilege can amplify speculative ideas, while the public’s fervent embrace of Martians (from Broadway shows to Nikola Tesla’s radio claims) exposes our timeless hunger for cosmic connection.
What resonated most deeply was Baron’s nuanced portrayal of gendered skepticism in the scientific backlash. While male critics like Alfred Russel Wallace dismantled Lowell’s theories with empirical rigor, Baron subtly highlights how women astronomers (like Williamina Fleming) were simultaneously making groundbreaking discoveries yet excluded from the Mars discourse—a tension I wished he’d explored further. The chapters detailing Lowell’s Atacama expedition and its sensationalized “proof” of canals evoked visceral frustration; I found myself aching for the marginalized voices (Indigenous Chileans, female scientists) sidelined in this Eurocentric quest. Baron’s prose, however, is masterful—equal parts wry and empathetic, transforming historical figures into flawed, fully human characters.
Structurally, the book occasionally struggles to balance its dual aims: a biography of Lowell and a cultural history of Mars mania. The middle sections linger on technical debates about telescopic optics, which, while academically rigorous, dilute the emotional momentum. A deeper analysis of how race and imperialism shaped Martian fantasies (e.g., the utopian society trope echoing colonial myths) would have strengthened Baron’s critique of projection as a cultural reflex. Still, his closing meditation on modern Mars colonization dreams—and their eerie parallels to Lowell’s era—left me chilled with recognition.
Strengths:
-Cultural Archaeology: Brilliantly contextualizes Mars mania within Gilded Age anxieties and scientific theater.
-Narrative Craft: Baron’s journalistic flair turns complex astronomy into page-turning drama.
-Provocative Parallels: Draws urgent lines between past delusions and present-day space rhetoric.
Critiques:
-Intersectional Gaps: Underdeveloped analysis of how gender/race shaped participation in and resistance to Mars narratives.
-Pacing Issues: Technical digressions disrupt the thematic flow in later chapters.
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5) – A dazzling but imperfect work that illuminates how our cosmic fantasies reveal earthly biases.
Thank you to W. W. Norton and Edelweiss for providing a free advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
Final Thought: Baron’s greatest achievement is showing how Mars has always been a Rorschach test. As we today dream of terraforming it, The Martians warns: beware the stories we tell about red planets—they’re usually about us.
David Baron’s The Martians is a captivating excavation of a forgotten cultural moment when America collectively hallucinated intelligent life on Mars—and in doing so, revealed more about human nature than extraterrestrial reality. As a woman and scholar of science communication, I was struck by how Baron frames this historical episode not as mere pseudoscientific folly, but as a lens for examining societal anxieties, class dynamics, and the seductive power of narrative. The book’s central figure, Percival Lowell—the aristocratic astronomer whose “canal” theories ignited Mars mania—emerges as a tragic emblem of how privilege can amplify speculative ideas, while the public’s fervent embrace of Martians (from Broadway shows to Nikola Tesla’s radio claims) exposes our timeless hunger for cosmic connection.
What resonated most deeply was Baron’s nuanced portrayal of gendered skepticism in the scientific backlash. While male critics like Alfred Russel Wallace dismantled Lowell’s theories with empirical rigor, Baron subtly highlights how women astronomers (like Williamina Fleming) were simultaneously making groundbreaking discoveries yet excluded from the Mars discourse—a tension I wished he’d explored further. The chapters detailing Lowell’s Atacama expedition and its sensationalized “proof” of canals evoked visceral frustration; I found myself aching for the marginalized voices (Indigenous Chileans, female scientists) sidelined in this Eurocentric quest. Baron’s prose, however, is masterful—equal parts wry and empathetic, transforming historical figures into flawed, fully human characters.
Structurally, the book occasionally struggles to balance its dual aims: a biography of Lowell and a cultural history of Mars mania. The middle sections linger on technical debates about telescopic optics, which, while academically rigorous, dilute the emotional momentum. A deeper analysis of how race and imperialism shaped Martian fantasies (e.g., the utopian society trope echoing colonial myths) would have strengthened Baron’s critique of projection as a cultural reflex. Still, his closing meditation on modern Mars colonization dreams—and their eerie parallels to Lowell’s era—left me chilled with recognition.
Strengths:
-Cultural Archaeology: Brilliantly contextualizes Mars mania within Gilded Age anxieties and scientific theater.
-Narrative Craft: Baron’s journalistic flair turns complex astronomy into page-turning drama.
-Provocative Parallels: Draws urgent lines between past delusions and present-day space rhetoric.
Critiques:
-Intersectional Gaps: Underdeveloped analysis of how gender/race shaped participation in and resistance to Mars narratives.
-Pacing Issues: Technical digressions disrupt the thematic flow in later chapters.
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5) – A dazzling but imperfect work that illuminates how our cosmic fantasies reveal earthly biases.
Thank you to W. W. Norton and Edelweiss for providing a free advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
Final Thought: Baron’s greatest achievement is showing how Mars has always been a Rorschach test. As we today dream of terraforming it, The Martians warns: beware the stories we tell about red planets—they’re usually about us.
November 29, 2025
In the 1890s, the wealthy Percival Lowell turned his attention to astronomy and changed the public perception of the planet Mars for decades to come. Untrained in the sciences, Lowell's money and charisma nevertheless brought him attention from the scientific community and the general population; he posited that the "canals" he claimed to see on the red planet through his telescope were evidence of intelligent life on Mars. While many scientists scoffed, and while Lowell's claims would eventually be debunked, the Martian craze would spark the imagination of writers like H.G. Wells and ignite the passion of space exploration throughout the twentieth century.
This book was really fascinating! I enjoyed this author's book about the 1878 solar eclipse and this one is written in a similar vein: a melding of history and astronomy, woven together in a compelling narrative. I think I might have followed this a little better if I'd read the book (there were enough unfamiliar people and events that it wasn't the easiest to follow on audio), but audio is the way I get through books lately; this was still definitely worth listening to.
I was captivated by the idea of this pseudo-scientist being led by confirmation bias to the conclusions he wanted (it rings eerily true of current events; I was reminded of the way ivermectin was the miracle cure for COVID or the MAHA push to tie autism to vaccines or Tylenol). But just as I was ready to dismiss Lowell as a blight on scientific history, the author convinced me in the epilogue that maybe a little bit of imagination in the sciences isn't all bad; maybe it inspires a future generation of scientists.
At any rate, I appreciated learning the history behind the man behind the Lowell Observatory -- I've been there!
I know that everyone out there has already read The Martian, but maybe it's time to also pick up The Martians!
This book was really fascinating! I enjoyed this author's book about the 1878 solar eclipse and this one is written in a similar vein: a melding of history and astronomy, woven together in a compelling narrative. I think I might have followed this a little better if I'd read the book (there were enough unfamiliar people and events that it wasn't the easiest to follow on audio), but audio is the way I get through books lately; this was still definitely worth listening to.
I was captivated by the idea of this pseudo-scientist being led by confirmation bias to the conclusions he wanted (it rings eerily true of current events; I was reminded of the way ivermectin was the miracle cure for COVID or the MAHA push to tie autism to vaccines or Tylenol). But just as I was ready to dismiss Lowell as a blight on scientific history, the author convinced me in the epilogue that maybe a little bit of imagination in the sciences isn't all bad; maybe it inspires a future generation of scientists.
At any rate, I appreciated learning the history behind the man behind the Lowell Observatory -- I've been there!
I know that everyone out there has already read The Martian, but maybe it's time to also pick up The Martians!
February 1, 2026
"The Martians" offers an engaging look into the early 20th-century obsession with the Red Planet, though its focus shifts unexpectedly. What begins as a cultural study of American fascination with Mars eventually evolves into a pseudo-biography of Martian astronomers like Percival Lowell, Nikola Tesla, and Giovanni Schiaparelli. While the author acknowledges this pivot in the epilogue, the transition feels a bit disjointed. However, as an educator, I found the historical context invaluable. It’s a quick, enjoyable read that serves as a fantastic case study on how confirmation bias can turn speculative science into popular propaganda.
December 5, 2025
Before reading I knew about the Martian "canal" theory, but I had no idea just how much of a Mars-mania that it produced during this time period. Baron's book is a compelling read into the scientific and cultural history of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The author doesn't just get into why people believed what they did about Mars and potential intelligent Martian life, he dives into the psychological and cultural reasons for why they wanted to believe it. Overall, The Martians is an entertaining and informative read about a phenomenon that I was previously ignorant of.
August 27, 2025
What a crazy story! I had no idea that in the years around 1900, many folks were convinced that Martians existed, led by the persuasive Percival Lowell. And a strong nonfiction book like this one leads me to add many more books to my TBR! Looking forward to meeting the author & getting this book autographed at the National Book Festival.
January 20, 2026
an easy read, albeit occasionally florid. more so a biography of percival lowell, who pushed the theory that mars was inhabitable to the spotlight. kind of a tragic tale! vivid details from the archive b the author could exercise better discretion. not something that’ll stick w me
December 20, 2025
If you ever wondered why so many people thought the broadcast of War of the Worlds was real, read this and you will understand. A riveting must-read!
April 21, 2025
This is a sprawling narrative (covering decades and involving such intriguing people as H.G. Wells & Nikola Tesla!) focused on how the bold claims of one Percival Lowell (that Mars held intelligent life), spread so far and wide in popular culture. It was fascinating to read about this hoax, and see just how many people got drawn into the argument. This all might have happened ages ago, but this 'Martian myth' read as very modern.
The conclusion of the book was a little more hopeful than the overall narrative, showing that despite Lowell's false claims, his work DID inspire others in the future to study & explore Mars.
Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book.
The conclusion of the book was a little more hopeful than the overall narrative, showing that despite Lowell's false claims, his work DID inspire others in the future to study & explore Mars.
Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book.
April 29, 2026
This was a great read! The author did a phenomenal job with the storytelling for the life of Percival Lowell. I had never heard of Percival Lowell before but now I want to watch a whole biopic on him. It’s an Oscar winning performance just waiting to happen.
It was fascinating to learn how he convinced himself and some of the general public that there was an advanced civilization on mars building massive canals. He pretty much created a religion behind the idea of Martians and it went on to influence some of the most iconic science fiction writers of the 20th century.
I’m coincidentally heading to Arizona this summer and will definitely be making a stop at the Lowell Observatory. I’m so interested to find out how much information their museum will have on their founder’s Mars canal delusions.
It was fascinating to learn how he convinced himself and some of the general public that there was an advanced civilization on mars building massive canals. He pretty much created a religion behind the idea of Martians and it went on to influence some of the most iconic science fiction writers of the 20th century.
I’m coincidentally heading to Arizona this summer and will definitely be making a stop at the Lowell Observatory. I’m so interested to find out how much information their museum will have on their founder’s Mars canal delusions.
September 10, 2025
Interesting story, but disappointed by the audio narration. The book focuses heavily on Percival Lowell’s research on Mars and everyone’s fascination with the potential of Martian life. However, more interesting is the underlying story of the power of wanting to believe something so badly that it leads to closed mindedness even in the face of scientific evidence.
October 3, 2025
This was a fun look back at the evolving landscape of extraterrestrial beliefs. My major takeaway was a reminder that science does not always evolve linearly, but in fits and starts and some backpedaling.
It is interesting to see how cultural mindsets can impact the interpretation of scientific data, and often even the questions and theories being tested. The dawn of the era of marketing and advertising further stoked interest. It was thought-provoking to reflect upon how the lens through which Americans were likely filtered through more terrestrial but unfamiliar Korean landscapes and Algerian topography, etc. There is a sadly recurring theme about human degradation that is touched upon, with the "American" craze and beliefs being influenced by regressive opinions about fellow earthlings.
It is interesting to see how cultural mindsets can impact the interpretation of scientific data, and often even the questions and theories being tested. The dawn of the era of marketing and advertising further stoked interest. It was thought-provoking to reflect upon how the lens through which Americans were likely filtered through more terrestrial but unfamiliar Korean landscapes and Algerian topography, etc. There is a sadly recurring theme about human degradation that is touched upon, with the "American" craze and beliefs being influenced by regressive opinions about fellow earthlings.
February 8, 2026
An interesting and indepth telling of a forgotten time in history. I was intrigued by the title and found the tale of passion and hubris held my attention in a surprising way. Looking back at the end on the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, we can feel like smarter beings. Yet, it is only through the innovations and scientific imagings of the people before us that we came to this point. The many scientific accomplishments and famous scientific adventurers woven into the true tales in this book are astounding. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the history of astronomy, or in the history of the late 19th/ early 20th century.
January 7, 2026
I have had a tough time reading nonfiction for a while. I was beginning to think it was somehow my fault as if I no longer had the capacity to understand such books. However, having read David Baron's excellent work, I now realize that my recent forays into nonfiction were, most likely, poorly written works about uninteresting topics. I devoured this book in a couple of days and understood everything it had to offer due to its fascinating thesis and well-written prose. I am now looking forward to discovering and reading new works of nonfiction while remembering that some books are just better than others.
January 30, 2026
A fantastic micro history about how the idea of Martian life flourished in America. Very hard to put down every time I had to do so. If you are at all interested in how we came to fall in love with the idea of alien on other planets, I very much recommend this title.
February 15, 2026
I love the subject matter: aliens, space, the birth of sci-fi (the xenophobia and othering of people at the core), yellow journalism, confirmation bias, the hope for something grand out there! Truly, there’s a lot of potential in this book and a lot of interesting concepts that could have benefitted from a stronger stance from the author. As it stands, he muddles through the canal debate with an awkward writing style and shies away from digging further into the societal backdrop that’s being established in the turn of the century that’s still playing out 120 years later.
Read
April 29, 2026So interesting!
February 6, 2026
If you are in need of a book that will put you to sleep look no further.
September 21, 2025
What an interesting read. Martians, Martians everywhere. And they propagated without the use of social media or the internets, but they went viral nonetheless. Our great-grandparents sure did live in interesting times.
Want to know why Martians always have big heads and antennae? Read this book. Want to learn how tabloid journalism got its start? Read this book. Want to meet the forefathers of Sci-Fi? You get the idea, just read this book. It's guaranteed to take you out of this world. You won't be disappointed.
Want to know why Martians always have big heads and antennae? Read this book. Want to learn how tabloid journalism got its start? Read this book. Want to meet the forefathers of Sci-Fi? You get the idea, just read this book. It's guaranteed to take you out of this world. You won't be disappointed.
September 18, 2025
This might have been a very interesting read with a plethora of fascinating characters - Marconi, Tesla, etc - but the narration on the audiobook is just awful. Words are mispronounced (engine-oo for ingenue, for example). There is unnecessary, borderline offensive stereotypical Italian/Irish/British accents performed for no logical reason. I listened to the rest of the audiobook so fast hoping that it would get better but I should have just made this a DNF.
May 1, 2026
In 1877, an Italian astronomer named Giovanni Schiaparelli looked through his telescope at Mars and saw lines. He called them canali, which means channels in Italian, but some fool translator turned them into canals in English, and just like that, Mars had plumbing. And plumbers.
The mistranslation was like a seed planted in the fertile soil of human loneliness. Americans, who had just finished connecting their own continent with railroads and telegraph wires, were ready to believe that somebody else, somewhere else, was doing the same thing on a grander scale. The idea that we might not be alone in this cold, indifferent universe was so appealing that nobody bothered to check the translation twice.
In waltzed the adventurous traveler Percival Lowell, a rich man from Boston with more imagination than sense and enough money to make his daydreams dangerous. Lowell was the sort of fellow who could look at a smudge through a telescope and see a civilization. He built himself an observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, about as far from Boston propriety as a man could get without leaving the planet, and dedicated his life to proving that Mars was crawling with intelligent life.
Lowell wrote books. He gave lectures. He drew detailed maps of Mars showing hundreds of canals crisscrossing the planet like a subway system designed by a madman with a ruler. According to Lowell, Mars was a dying world, and the Martians, noble, desperate creatures, had built these massive waterworks to carry precious moisture from the polar ice caps to their thirsty cities. It was engineering on a scale that made the Panama Canal look like a backyard garden hose.
The newspapers ate it up. The magazines couldn't get enough. Ordinary Americans, who had been content to worry about earthly matters like corrupt politicians and whether the iceman would show up on time, suddenly found themselves checking the evening papers for updates on interplanetary engineering projects.
And why not? This was America in the 1890s, when anything seemed possible. Electric lights were turning night into day. Railroads were shrinking the continent. Telegraph wires were making the world smaller by the minute. If humans could do all that in a few decades, imagine what an older, wiser race might accomplish given a few million years and the proper motivation.
The whole thing was, of course, complete nonsense.
But what beautiful nonsense it was! H.G. Wells, that crafty Englishman, took Lowell's dying Martians and turned them into monsters in The War of the Worlds, because apparently the only thing better than imagining we're not alone is imagining that our cosmic neighbors want to eat us. The book scared people silly, which was probably the point.
Meanwhile, the astronomers split into camps. Some, drunk on Lowell's vision, spent their nights squinting through telescopes, trying to spot signs of Martian agriculture. Others, possessed of that peculiar form of courage that allows scientists to be killjoys, pointed out that the canals might not actually exist.
They were right, naturally. Better telescopes and more careful observations eventually revealed that Lowell's canals were optical illusions, tricks of the eye, products of the brain's compulsive need to find patterns even where none exist. The human mind, it turns out, is like a conspiracy theorist: give it a few random dots, and it will connect them into a grand design.
So the canals vanished, one by one, under scientific scrutiny. The dying Martian civilization crumbled like a house of cards in a stiff breeze. Professional astronomy moved on to more respectable pursuits, leaving Mars to the pulp writers and dreamers.
But here's the thing about beautiful lies: they're harder to kill than ugly truths. Even after the canals disappeared from the textbooks, they lived on in the popular imagination. Edgar Rice Burroughs sent John Carter to Mars. Ray Bradbury filled it with melancholy poets. The idea that we might not be alone in the universe had taken root in the human heart, and no amount of scientific rigor could dig it out completely.
And perhaps that's for the best. The Martian canal craze lasted barely fifty years, but it launched a thousand science fiction stories and inspired generations of humans to look up at the night sky with wonder instead of fear. It planted the seeds of space exploration and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Not bad for a translation error.
Today, we know Mars is a cold, dead rock with no canals, no cities, and no desperate engineers trying to save their dying world. We've sent robots there to dig around in the dirt, and they've found nothing more exciting than evidence that water once flowed there billions of years ago.
But we keep looking. We keep listening. We keep hoping.
Because even though Lowell was wrong about Mars, he was right about something more important: in a universe this vast and strange, it would be the ultimate cosmic joke if Earth turned out to be the only place where matter had organized itself into something capable of wondering about its own existence.
❤️ 🇮🇱
The mistranslation was like a seed planted in the fertile soil of human loneliness. Americans, who had just finished connecting their own continent with railroads and telegraph wires, were ready to believe that somebody else, somewhere else, was doing the same thing on a grander scale. The idea that we might not be alone in this cold, indifferent universe was so appealing that nobody bothered to check the translation twice.
In waltzed the adventurous traveler Percival Lowell, a rich man from Boston with more imagination than sense and enough money to make his daydreams dangerous. Lowell was the sort of fellow who could look at a smudge through a telescope and see a civilization. He built himself an observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, about as far from Boston propriety as a man could get without leaving the planet, and dedicated his life to proving that Mars was crawling with intelligent life.
Lowell wrote books. He gave lectures. He drew detailed maps of Mars showing hundreds of canals crisscrossing the planet like a subway system designed by a madman with a ruler. According to Lowell, Mars was a dying world, and the Martians, noble, desperate creatures, had built these massive waterworks to carry precious moisture from the polar ice caps to their thirsty cities. It was engineering on a scale that made the Panama Canal look like a backyard garden hose.
The newspapers ate it up. The magazines couldn't get enough. Ordinary Americans, who had been content to worry about earthly matters like corrupt politicians and whether the iceman would show up on time, suddenly found themselves checking the evening papers for updates on interplanetary engineering projects.
And why not? This was America in the 1890s, when anything seemed possible. Electric lights were turning night into day. Railroads were shrinking the continent. Telegraph wires were making the world smaller by the minute. If humans could do all that in a few decades, imagine what an older, wiser race might accomplish given a few million years and the proper motivation.
The whole thing was, of course, complete nonsense.
But what beautiful nonsense it was! H.G. Wells, that crafty Englishman, took Lowell's dying Martians and turned them into monsters in The War of the Worlds, because apparently the only thing better than imagining we're not alone is imagining that our cosmic neighbors want to eat us. The book scared people silly, which was probably the point.
Meanwhile, the astronomers split into camps. Some, drunk on Lowell's vision, spent their nights squinting through telescopes, trying to spot signs of Martian agriculture. Others, possessed of that peculiar form of courage that allows scientists to be killjoys, pointed out that the canals might not actually exist.
They were right, naturally. Better telescopes and more careful observations eventually revealed that Lowell's canals were optical illusions, tricks of the eye, products of the brain's compulsive need to find patterns even where none exist. The human mind, it turns out, is like a conspiracy theorist: give it a few random dots, and it will connect them into a grand design.
So the canals vanished, one by one, under scientific scrutiny. The dying Martian civilization crumbled like a house of cards in a stiff breeze. Professional astronomy moved on to more respectable pursuits, leaving Mars to the pulp writers and dreamers.
But here's the thing about beautiful lies: they're harder to kill than ugly truths. Even after the canals disappeared from the textbooks, they lived on in the popular imagination. Edgar Rice Burroughs sent John Carter to Mars. Ray Bradbury filled it with melancholy poets. The idea that we might not be alone in the universe had taken root in the human heart, and no amount of scientific rigor could dig it out completely.
And perhaps that's for the best. The Martian canal craze lasted barely fifty years, but it launched a thousand science fiction stories and inspired generations of humans to look up at the night sky with wonder instead of fear. It planted the seeds of space exploration and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Not bad for a translation error.
Today, we know Mars is a cold, dead rock with no canals, no cities, and no desperate engineers trying to save their dying world. We've sent robots there to dig around in the dirt, and they've found nothing more exciting than evidence that water once flowed there billions of years ago.
But we keep looking. We keep listening. We keep hoping.
Because even though Lowell was wrong about Mars, he was right about something more important: in a universe this vast and strange, it would be the ultimate cosmic joke if Earth turned out to be the only place where matter had organized itself into something capable of wondering about its own existence.
❤️ 🇮🇱
August 8, 2025
It is an inspiring epic of human inventiveness. It is a cautionary tale of mass delusion. It is a drama of battling egos. Ultimately, though, it is a love story, an account of when we, the people of Earth, fell hard for another planet and projected our fantasies, desires and ambitions onto an alien world. [Introduction]
This is an account of Percival Lowell's obsession with the planet Mars, and its profound consequences for the human race. Following the observations of Schiaparelli -- who described a network of long straight lines on the planet, 'canali' (channels, but mistranslated as 'canals') -- Lowell, a wealthy businessman, published a number of books about his observations and his interpretation of them. He also founded the Lowell Observatory, and inspired a generation of scientists and science fiction authors.
The first part of the book, 'Century's End - 1876-1900', recounts Lowell's early life, and the context in which his astronomical work was received: his first books were published in the 1890s, in a period where science and technology were celebrated. Several reputable figures had asserted that life was not only possible but probable on other planets, and there was much discussion -- in parallel with the fashion for spiritualism -- about how to communicate with the inhabitants of our nearest neighbour. Nikola Tesla was convinced that his work in 'wireless telegraphy' (radio) would enable him to signal Mars.
In the second section, 'A New Civilization - 1901-1907', the sense of the limitless possibilities of the new century is strong. Mars became fashionable: everything from stage plays to dance tunes, advertising, and a plethora of stories in the popular press. (Meanwhile in London, Edward Maunder, an assistant at the Royal Observatory, conducted a study at the Royal Hospital School in Greenwich, showing that schoolboys perceived straight lines on images of Mars if seated at a certain distance from the pictures. Closer, and they could distinguish the lines and curves that made up those 'straight lines': further away and it was all a blur.)
The third section, 'The Earthlings Respond - 1908-1916', describes the waning of popular enthusiasm for Lowell's ideas -- although he continued his lecture tours until his death in 1916, maintaining that "the difficulty in establishing the fact that Mars is inhabited lies not in the lack of intelligence on Mars, but rather the lack of it here." What he lacked in scientific rigour, he made up for in sheer stubborn belief.
Baron's epilogue, 'Children of Mars', celebrates Lowell's legacy. He suggests that the reason the American public were so ready to believe that Orson Welles' radio production of The War of the Worlds was real news was that many could remember all the newspaper reports about life on Mars. And, more importantly, 'intelligent eyes really had been watching human affairs keenly and closely': not aliens but children* who grew up hearing stories and theories about other worlds. A young man in Luxembourg was enthralled by Lowell's Mars: his name was Hugo Gernsback, and he is regarded as a key figure in the rise of science fiction as a genre. H P Lovecraft attended one of Lowell's lectures aged 16; H G Wells met Lowell and discussed Mars with him (this fact established by Baron's own research); and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars featured canals, deserts and dry lakes, just as Lowell had suggested. Burroughs' Barsoom, in turn, inspired another generation of writers and scientists, including Carl Sagan, Ray Bradbury and Arthur C Clarke.
This was a great read, full of fascinating detail and copious illustrations. Baron's authorial voice is unobtrusive: his accounts of his research expeditions are interesting but very much secondary to the main narrative. There's a good bibliography and extensive references. And I did like his conclusion:
... I thought I had set out to tell a tale of human folly, about how easy it is to deceive ourselves into believing things simply because we wish them to be true... I discovered another, perhaps more powerful takeaway: Human imagination is a force so potent that it can change what is true. Thanks to Lowell's Martian fantasies that helped inspire the early space age, visiting the Red Planet has become a potentially realisable goal for today's children. [loc. 3031]
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 26 AUG 2025.
* same thing?
June 24, 2025
My thanks to NetGalley and W. W. Norton & Company for an advance copy of this new look at an early 20th century craze that swept the nation, one that scared and intrigued people, one that inspired many, and gave rise to a lot of different stories, ideas and conspiracies that we are still enjoying, or dealing with today.
I never thought it about it much but while other men are thinking about the Roman Empire, I find myself thinking of Mars. The Red Planet was part of my childhood with Marvin the Martian, and his duels with Daffy and Bugs Bunny. Somehow I remember watching My Favorite Martian, but I am not that old. I read Martian Chronicles and John Carter adventures set on Mars one summer, two different sets of stories that inspired me in different ways. And honestly anything I read about the Mars Rovers always make me sad, thinking about those robots carrying on past the life expectancy doing work, and making science, with only a cold lonely fate to look forward too. I guess I am not alone as many a finance bro and billionaire think of Mars as the next great thing, a landscape to exploit, maybe even a shelter from a dying Earth. Thinking about Mars is not a new thing. At the start of the 20th century, science was progressing in leaps and bounds. The heavens were being explored, and Mars was being made visible to telescopes and thinkers. And people who loved stories more than facts. The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America by science writer David Baron is a look at a time when Mars was the place, to paraphrase Sun Ra, when thoughts of aliens, canals, invasions, and much more filled the newspapers and lecture halls, and their effect on art, science and our thinking today.
The beginning of the 20th century was one of scientific technology leaping forward, with ideas coming quick and fast. The world was being explored, telegrams and telephones were able to speed communications. And the heavens were suddenly closer. Especially Mars. There had been much speculation on the planet being full of life, as a mistranslation of an Italian work by Giovanni Schiaparelli where he saw channels that was translated wrongly into canals. This error meant that many thought these formations were created by intelligent life, though many at the time were sure this was not so. However the world had changed much in a short period of time. Much of this change affected how people saw the world, and their importance in it. Into this stepped a young scientist with money to fund his experiments. Percival Lowell had the family name, the background and the ability to communicate to people, which he did on a series of lectures about Mars. How could Martians survive? Did they fly? Did they have gills? As more and more interest became apparant, soon the newspapers were making up stories for their readers. Tales of creatures, tales of structures on the surface. Tales of what could happen if they came here. Discussions began about what was real, and what was not, but soon Martian fever began to seep into the public consciousness, and people wanted more.
I had known that Mars was a phenomena at one point, but I had no idea how big. Nor the effect that much of this had on not only science and scientific presentation and methods, but about art, and thinking. Baron is a very good writer, able to make the science clear and understandable, while also detailing the many different aspects in society that were being undergoing a lot of upheaval. Baron profiles many from Lowell, to H. G. Welles, and also a name that does not get enough attention. Maria Mitchell and her efforts to bring more women into science, when this idea wasn't even considered possible or useful. There are many good stories, and lots of asides of facts and information that really make the book quite enjoyable.
An interesting read for people who like to read about science, the fascinating people involved in science, both good and bad. Also science fiction fans will get a lot out of this. Probably like myself in thinking how different their life would be without Mars.
I never thought it about it much but while other men are thinking about the Roman Empire, I find myself thinking of Mars. The Red Planet was part of my childhood with Marvin the Martian, and his duels with Daffy and Bugs Bunny. Somehow I remember watching My Favorite Martian, but I am not that old. I read Martian Chronicles and John Carter adventures set on Mars one summer, two different sets of stories that inspired me in different ways. And honestly anything I read about the Mars Rovers always make me sad, thinking about those robots carrying on past the life expectancy doing work, and making science, with only a cold lonely fate to look forward too. I guess I am not alone as many a finance bro and billionaire think of Mars as the next great thing, a landscape to exploit, maybe even a shelter from a dying Earth. Thinking about Mars is not a new thing. At the start of the 20th century, science was progressing in leaps and bounds. The heavens were being explored, and Mars was being made visible to telescopes and thinkers. And people who loved stories more than facts. The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America by science writer David Baron is a look at a time when Mars was the place, to paraphrase Sun Ra, when thoughts of aliens, canals, invasions, and much more filled the newspapers and lecture halls, and their effect on art, science and our thinking today.
The beginning of the 20th century was one of scientific technology leaping forward, with ideas coming quick and fast. The world was being explored, telegrams and telephones were able to speed communications. And the heavens were suddenly closer. Especially Mars. There had been much speculation on the planet being full of life, as a mistranslation of an Italian work by Giovanni Schiaparelli where he saw channels that was translated wrongly into canals. This error meant that many thought these formations were created by intelligent life, though many at the time were sure this was not so. However the world had changed much in a short period of time. Much of this change affected how people saw the world, and their importance in it. Into this stepped a young scientist with money to fund his experiments. Percival Lowell had the family name, the background and the ability to communicate to people, which he did on a series of lectures about Mars. How could Martians survive? Did they fly? Did they have gills? As more and more interest became apparant, soon the newspapers were making up stories for their readers. Tales of creatures, tales of structures on the surface. Tales of what could happen if they came here. Discussions began about what was real, and what was not, but soon Martian fever began to seep into the public consciousness, and people wanted more.
I had known that Mars was a phenomena at one point, but I had no idea how big. Nor the effect that much of this had on not only science and scientific presentation and methods, but about art, and thinking. Baron is a very good writer, able to make the science clear and understandable, while also detailing the many different aspects in society that were being undergoing a lot of upheaval. Baron profiles many from Lowell, to H. G. Welles, and also a name that does not get enough attention. Maria Mitchell and her efforts to bring more women into science, when this idea wasn't even considered possible or useful. There are many good stories, and lots of asides of facts and information that really make the book quite enjoyable.
An interesting read for people who like to read about science, the fascinating people involved in science, both good and bad. Also science fiction fans will get a lot out of this. Probably like myself in thinking how different their life would be without Mars.
February 9, 2026
I've always been fascinated by Mars. I mean I loved space in general as a kid, but Mars was especially big because I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s where it felt like there was a cool new Mars probe every week. And I devoured all the books I could find about Mars, so I was already aware of the basics of the canal controversy before picking up this book. But David Baron does a great job of really digging into it and exploring not just the science but the social and historical aspects of the whole thing.
The book starts in 1876, though it mainly focuses on the two decades of the 1890s and 1900s. As with many things in the 19th century, astronomy was becoming more and more similar to the scientific field we know today, and people across the world were using telescopes to peer into the heavens and try to understand the universe. Unsurprisingly Mars was a focus of a lot of this exploration, as it comes quite close to Earth every two years and stands out well against other things in the sky thanks to its bright red color. Also, the theory of the evolution of the solar system at the time posited that the planets further from the sun had been formed earlier than those nearer the sun. Thus, Mars was like our older brother and studying it might tell us something about the future of Earth.
So of course everyone went wild with excitement when reports came of an Italian astronomer seeing canals on Mars. Except...as I already knew, he used an Italian word that meant channels (and thus not implying intelligent creation) and that got easily mistranslated as canals. It does seem like that didn't take too long to get corrected, but the way the idea of canals on Mars was so suggestive of intelligent life meant that everyone was already off to the races to try to learn more and even see if the Martians could be contacted.
As a result, the book touches on all sorts of events and figures from this part of history. Of course Percival Lowell is heavily involved, as he founded an observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona that lead the pro-canal charge. And in fact while the book explores other themes and topics, it feels like it does a fair job of profiling Lowell over the course of his adult life, from Harvard graduation all the way to death. It's fascinating to see how as time goes on and scientific knowledge advances he goes from a leading pioneer to the 1910s version of a flat earther YouTube channel. Nikolai Tesla also makes some appearances, as does Marconi and Edison. On the fiction side, there's plenty about HG Wells, and not just War of the Worlds, but some of his earlier and later works that track his reaction to the changing state of science. But I especially enjoy how at the end of the book, Baron traces a direct line from this era to his own interest in Mars by way of Carl Sagan, who was influenced by Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom books. It's a nice reminder that for all that the idea of canals proved to be bunk, they were and still are influential on how we think about the red planet and space as a whole.
This proved to be a pretty interesting book that does a good job of exploring its topic. It did leave me with the feeling that there's the potential for some really interesting throwback sci-fi about a world where there really were Martians and one or more of the outlandish plans for contacting them went through. So I guess in that way it's valuable not just as a lesson in history but as something to get me thinking about Mars just as people back then were left wondering.
The book starts in 1876, though it mainly focuses on the two decades of the 1890s and 1900s. As with many things in the 19th century, astronomy was becoming more and more similar to the scientific field we know today, and people across the world were using telescopes to peer into the heavens and try to understand the universe. Unsurprisingly Mars was a focus of a lot of this exploration, as it comes quite close to Earth every two years and stands out well against other things in the sky thanks to its bright red color. Also, the theory of the evolution of the solar system at the time posited that the planets further from the sun had been formed earlier than those nearer the sun. Thus, Mars was like our older brother and studying it might tell us something about the future of Earth.
So of course everyone went wild with excitement when reports came of an Italian astronomer seeing canals on Mars. Except...as I already knew, he used an Italian word that meant channels (and thus not implying intelligent creation) and that got easily mistranslated as canals. It does seem like that didn't take too long to get corrected, but the way the idea of canals on Mars was so suggestive of intelligent life meant that everyone was already off to the races to try to learn more and even see if the Martians could be contacted.
As a result, the book touches on all sorts of events and figures from this part of history. Of course Percival Lowell is heavily involved, as he founded an observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona that lead the pro-canal charge. And in fact while the book explores other themes and topics, it feels like it does a fair job of profiling Lowell over the course of his adult life, from Harvard graduation all the way to death. It's fascinating to see how as time goes on and scientific knowledge advances he goes from a leading pioneer to the 1910s version of a flat earther YouTube channel. Nikolai Tesla also makes some appearances, as does Marconi and Edison. On the fiction side, there's plenty about HG Wells, and not just War of the Worlds, but some of his earlier and later works that track his reaction to the changing state of science. But I especially enjoy how at the end of the book, Baron traces a direct line from this era to his own interest in Mars by way of Carl Sagan, who was influenced by Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom books. It's a nice reminder that for all that the idea of canals proved to be bunk, they were and still are influential on how we think about the red planet and space as a whole.
This proved to be a pretty interesting book that does a good job of exploring its topic. It did leave me with the feeling that there's the potential for some really interesting throwback sci-fi about a world where there really were Martians and one or more of the outlandish plans for contacting them went through. So I guess in that way it's valuable not just as a lesson in history but as something to get me thinking about Mars just as people back then were left wondering.
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