Nall, Joshua (Author)
University of Pittsburgh Press
Physical Details: 312
Language: English
Mass media in the late nineteenth century was full of news from Mars. In the wake of Giovanni Schiaparelli’s 1877 discovery of enigmatic dark, straight lines on the red planet, astronomers and the public at large vigorously debated the possibility that it might be inhabited. As rivalling scientific practitioners looked to marshal allies and sway public opinion—through newspapers, periodicals, popular books, exhibitions, and encyclopaedias—they exposed disagreements over how the discipline of astronomy should be organized and how it should establish acceptable conventions of discourse.News from Mars provides a new account of this extraordinary episode in the history of astronomy, revealing how major transformations in astronomical practice across Britain and America were inextricably tied up with popular scientific culture and a transatlantic news economy that enabled knowledge to travel. As Joshua Nall argues, astronomers were journalists, too, eliding practice with communication in consequential ways. As writers and editors, they played a pivotal role in the emergence of a “new astronomy” dedicated to the study of the physical constitution and life history of celestial objects, blurring harsh distinctions between those who produced esoteric knowledge and those who disseminated it.
...MoreReview Charlotte Sleigh (2020) Review of "News from Mars: Mass Media and the Forging of a New Astronomy, 1860-1910". British Journal for the History of Science (pp. 281-282).
Review Hsiang-Fu Huang (2020) Review of "News from Mars: Mass Media and the Forging of a New Astronomy, 1860-1910". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 685-686).
Review Hsiang-Fu Huang (2020) Review of "News from Mars: Mass Media and the Forging of a New Astronomy, 1860-1910". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 685-686).
Review Omar W. Nasim (2020) Review of "News from Mars: Mass Media and the Forging of a New Astronomy, 1860-1910". Journal for the History of Astronomy (pp. 371-372).
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