The Martians
The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America
Published on 26. August 2025
Book
Hardback
336 pages
978-1-324-09066-3 (ISBN)
Description
The New York Times headline was no joke. In the early 1900s, many believed intelligent life had been discovered on Mars. The Martians -a bizarre tale reconstructed through newly discovered clippings, letters and photographs-begins in the 1890s with Percival Lowell, a Harvard scion who was so certain of his Mars discovery that he (almost) convinced a generation of astronomers that grainy photographs of the red planet revealed meltwater and an intricate canal system, declaring "there can be no doubt that living beings inhabit our neighbouring world" (The 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 and a new genre called science fiction arose. While Lowell's claims were debunked, his influence sparked a compulsive interest in Mars and life in outer space that continues to this day.
David Baron's American Eclipse was praised as:
"suffused with the peculiar magic and sense of awe that have always attended eclipses, those fraught few minutes when day becomes night, time stands still-and anything seems possible."- Hampton Sides, The New York Times best-selling author of Blood and Thunder
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 and a new genre called science fiction arose. While Lowell's claims were debunked, his influence sparked a compulsive interest in Mars and life in outer space that continues to this day.
David Baron's American Eclipse was praised as:
"suffused with the peculiar magic and sense of awe that have always attended eclipses, those fraught few minutes when day becomes night, time stands still-and anything seems possible."- Hampton Sides, The New York Times best-selling author of Blood and Thunder
Reviews / Votes
"Mars, our barren neighbor, has served as an empty canvas for our expansionist imaginations since long before Elon Musk arrived on the scene. Baron chronicles the lasting influence of the Mars mania that gripped America during the early 1900s, how it captured the imaginations of Nikola Tesla and Alexander Graham Bell, generated speculative news headlines, fueled astronomical ambitions and left an indelible imprint on our culture." -- The New York Times Book Review: one of "21 Nonfiction Books Coming this Summer" "David Baron's exuberant book tells the story of a seemingly alien race-Americans of a century or so ago-that, on closer inspection, bears an uncanny resemblance to us today. The rich had gotten fantastically richer, life was unsettled by an array of new technologies, and, in their frustration, people began looking elsewhere for answers." -- Russell Shorto, author of Taking Manhattan "Engrossing... Baron seasons his narrative with striking details... Until we learn more from future missions, his highly enjoyable book makes a strong case for the proposition that brainy Martians exist only in the imagination of Earthlings." -- Dennis Drabelle - The Washington Post "With The Martians, David Baron has crafted more than a history book; it's a cultural mirror reflecting our endless curiosity about whether we are alone. As humanity edges closer to setting foot on Mars, the lessons from past "Mars mania" may help us navigate the line between inspiration and illusion." -- NASA Space News "The world is gaga for Mars. Its richest man, Elon Musk, is actively scheming to colonize the red planet over the next decade . . . Under the long, dark shadow cast by this ambition, the science journalist David Baron has produced a short, twinkling book about the origins of Mars mania . . . You can consider Baron a sort of sun, shedding light . . . In Baron's true tale, reputations rise and fall, and ego distorts like a smudged lens." -- Alexandra Jacobs - The New York Times Book Review "[A] convivial and rigorously researched history of the first Martian craze. . . . The Martians is fundamentally a portrait of the man who turned Mars into the night sky's red Rorschach blot." -- Nathaniel Rich - The New York Review of Books "[The Martians] shows how fantastical beliefs gained purchase in a pre-Facebook age . . . Still, if Baron deftly illustrates the historical roots of collective phantasms, his book is ultimately most interesting for what it says about the timelessness of our shared fascination with the stars, and Mars in particular." -- Jon Allsop - The New Yorker "Baron's vivid narrative reads as part history, part social study, and part literary drama, making complex scientific dynamics accessible without sacrificing depth . . . The Martians does more than examine this episode in astronomical history; it also illuminates the very human processes by which science is often made, contested, and believed." -- Dov Greenbaum - Science Magazine "Few crazes have possessed the peculiar blend of scientific gravitas and romantic foolishness that characterized our nation's turn-of-the-century infatuation with Mars. David Baron's The Martians... retrieves this forgotten episode from history's dustbin and polishes it until it gleams like the red planet itself on a clear desert night . . . Baron, a former NPR science correspondent, approaches his subject with the light touch of a novelist and the precision of a historian." -- Scientific InquirerMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
101 illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 158 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
580 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-324-09066-3 (9781324090663)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
08/2025
Liveright
€27.99
Available for download
Person
David Baron is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and author of The Beast in the Garden and American Eclipse. A former science correspondent for NPR, he has also written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Scientific American, and other publications. David recently served as the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology, Exploration, and Scientific Innovation. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.