e-branch	Login My List - 0 Help
	Home   My Account/Renew Loans   Community Info   KidSearch   New Catalogue!

Search Advanced By Format By Number My Searches Can't Find it? Find Magazine Articles & more Problems?

Search:  Title Starts with...Title Keyword(s)Author/Performer/Name (Last,First)Author/Performer/Name Keyword(s)Subject Starts with...Subject Keyword(s)Series Starts with...Series Keyword(s)Anyword/AnywhereList Name Keyword(s)       Refine Search     > You're searching: Halifax Public Libraries

Item Information   Copy / Holding Information     Booklist Review     Library Journal Review     Publisher Weekly Review     Table of Contents     More Content       More by this author     Baron, David, 1964-     Subjects     Science -- United States -- History -- 19th century.     Science -- United States -- History -- 20th century.     Eclipses -- History.     Astronomy -- United States -- History -- 19th century.     Astronomy -- United States -- History -- 20th century.     United States -- Civilization -- 1865-1918.     Browse Catalog     by author:      Baron, David, 1964-       by title:      American eclipse : a...       by call number:      523.780973 B265a     Search the Web     Baron, David, 1964-     Science -- United States -- History -- 19th century.     Science -- United States -- History -- 20th century.     Eclipses -- History.     Astronomy -- United States -- History -- 19th century.     Astronomy -- United States -- History -- 20th century.     United States -- Civilization -- 1865-1918.       MARC Display

American eclipse : a nation's epic race to catch the shadow of the moon and win the glory of the world / David Baron. by Baron, David, 1964- Liveright Publishing Corporation, c2017. Call #: 523.780973 B265a Subjects Science -- United States -- History -- 19th century.   Science -- United States -- History -- 20th century.   Eclipses -- History.   Astronomy -- United States -- History -- 19th century.   Astronomy -- United States -- History -- 20th century.   United States -- Civilization -- 1865-1918. ISBN:  9781631490163 (hc) 1631490168 (hc) Edition:  1st ed. Description:  xii, 330 p. : ill. (some color), maps, col. chart ; 25 cm. Bibliography:  Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents:  Prologue: Shall the sun be darkened -- Part one: 1876. Reign of shoddy ; Professor of quadruplicity ; Nemesis ; "Petticoat parliament" -- Part two: 1878. Politics and moonshine ; The wizard in Washington ; Sic transit ; "Good woman that she are" ; Show business -- Part three: 1878. Among the tribes of uncivilization ; Queen city ; Nature's editor ; Old probabilities -- Part four: 1878. Favored mortals ; First contact ; Totality ; American genius -- Part five: 1878-1931. Ghosts ; Shadow and light -- Epilogue: Tendrils of history. Summary:  "On a scorching July afternoon in 1878, at the dawn of the Gilded Age, the moon's shadow descended on the American West, darkening skies from Montana Territory to Texas. This rare celestial event--a total solar eclipse--offered a priceless opportunity to solve some of the solar system's most enduring riddles, and it prompted a clutch of enterprising scientists to brave the wild frontier in a grueling race to the Rocky Mountains. Acclaimed science journalist David Baron, long fascinated by eclipses, re-creates this epic tale of ambition, failure, and glory in a narrative that reveals as much about the historical trajectory of a striving young nation as it does about those scant three minutes when the blue sky blackened and stars appeared in mid-afternoon. 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, virtually forgotten in the twenty-first century, was in his day a renowned asteroid hunter who fantasized about becoming a Gilded Age Galileo. Hauling a telescope, a star chart, and his long-suffering wife out west, Watson believed that he would discover Vulcan, a hypothesized "intra-Mercurial" planet hidden in the sun's brilliance. No less determined was Vassar astronomer Maria Mitchell, who--in an era when women's education came under fierce attack--fought to demonstrate that science and higher learning were not anathema to femininity. Despite obstacles erected by the male-dominated astronomical community, an indifferent government, and careless porters, Mitchell courageously charged west with a contingent of female students intent on observing the transcendent phenomenon for themselves. Finally, Thomas Edison--a young inventor and irrepressible showman--braved the wilderness to prove himself to the scientific community. Armed with his newest invention, the tasimeter, and pursued at each stop by throngs of reporters, Edison sought to leverage the eclipse to cement his place in history. What he learned on the frontier, in fact, would help him illuminate the world. With memorable accounts of train robberies and Indian skirmishes, David Baron's page-turning drama refracts nineteenth-century science through the mythologized age of the Wild West, revealing a history no less fierce and fantastical. "--Jacket. Holds:  0   Copy/Holding information Location Collection Call No. Item type Status   Central Library Adult Nonfiction 523.780973 B265a Core Collection - Adult Adult Display 1 Add Copy to MyList

Horizon Information Portal 3.24_8902M

© 2001-2013 SirsiDynix All rights reserved.