{"product_id":"the-martians-the-true-story-of-an-alien-craze-that-captured-turn-of-the-century-america-1","title":"(09\/01\/26 PREORDER) The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America","description":"\u003cp\u003eA TIME BEST BOOK OF 2025: \"A completely true look at America’s infatuation with aliens at the turn of the 20th century that feels like it could be science fiction . . . The Martians is not only a captivating look at recent history, but also a poignant cautionary tale, offering hard-to-ignore parallels between the alien enthusiasts of the Gilded Age and the conspiracy theorists of today.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR\u003cbr\u003eLonglisted for the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Nonfiction\u003cbr\u003eNamed one of the Best Books of the Year by Science News, Boston Globe, Library Journal, Reactor, PopMatters, Colorado Public Radio, and the Chicago Public Library\u003cbr\u003eNew York TimesBook Review • Editors' Choice\u003cbr\u003eLiterary Hub •10 Best-Reviewed Nonfiction Books of 2025\u003cbr\u003eChristian Science Monitor • 10 Best Books of August\u003cbr\u003eA Westword holiday book recommendation\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLong before NASA began contemplating a visit to our neighboring world, a turn-of-the-century Mars craze invaded the public’s imagination, here thrillingly retold in David Baron’s The Martians.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“There is Life on the Planet Mars” ―New York Times, December 9, 1906\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis New York Times headline was no joke.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the early 1900s, many Americans actually believed we had discovered intelligent life on Mars, as best-selling science writer David Baron chronicles in The Martians, his truly bizarre tale of a nation swept up in Mars mania.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt the center of Baron’s historical drama is Percival Lowell, the Boston Brahmin and Harvard scion, who observed “canals” etched into the surface of Mars. Lowell devised a grand theory that the red planet was home to a utopian society that had built gargantuan ditches to funnel precious meltwater from the polar icecaps to desert farms and oasis cities. The public fell in love with the ambitious amateur astronomer who shared his findings in speeches and wildly popular books.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile at first people treated the Martians whimsically―Martians headlining Broadway shows, biologists speculating whether they were winged or gilled―the discussion quickly became serious. Inventor Nikola Tesla announced he had received radio signals from Mars; Alexander Graham Bell agreed there was “no escape from the conviction” that intelligent beings inhabited the planet. Martian excitement reached its zenith when Lowell financed an expedition to photograph Mars from Chile’s Atacama Desert, resulting in what newspapers hailed as proof of the Martian canals’ existence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTriumph quickly yielded to tragedy. Those wild claims and highly speculative photographs emboldened Lowell’s critics, whose withering attacks gathered steam and eventually wrecked the man and his theory―but not the fervor he had started. Although Lowell would die discredited and delusional in 1916, the Mars frenzy spurred a nascent literary genre called science fiction, and the world’s sense of its place in the universe would never be the same.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eToday, the red planet maintains its grip on the public’s imagination. Many see Mars as civilization’s destiny―the first step toward our becoming an interplanetary species―but, as David Baron demonstrates, this tendency to project our hopes onto the world next door is hardly new. The Martians is a scintillating and necessary reminder that while we look to Mars for answers, what we often find are mirrors of ourselves.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e101 illustrations\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"W. W. Norton \u0026 Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54558254792979,"sku":"9781324099369","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0815\/1652\/7891\/files\/9781324099369.jpg?v=1786391386","url":"https:\/\/www.monsterasbooks.com\/products\/the-martians-the-true-story-of-an-alien-craze-that-captured-turn-of-the-century-america-1","provider":"Monstera's Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}