American Eclipse
Ratings2
Average rating4
15
Ratings2
Average rating4
In vibrant historical detail, American Eclipse animates the fierce jockeying that came to dominate late nineteenth-century American astronomy, revealing the challenges faced by three of the most determined eclipse chasers who participated in this adventure. James Craig Watson, in his day a renowned asteroid hunter; Vassar astronomer Maria Mitchell, who fought to demonstrate that science and higher learning were not anathema to femininity; and Thomas Edison, a young inventor and irrepressible showman. With vivid accounts of train robberies and Indian skirmishes, Baron's page-turning drama not only brings to life the mythologized age of the Wild West in a totally unexpected way but forever memorializes an historic eclipse that would come to symbolize American science in its ascendance.--
Reviews with the most likes.
Really enjoyed this. Learned a lot about the people involved.
I hadn't known that Edison tried to invent a kind of hyper sensitive thermometer.
The approaching deadline of the eclipse really made the book more exciting than the usual history book.
