For more than a century, Mars has fueled our greatest hopes and strangest fantasies about extraterrestrial life. At the turn of the 20th century, those dreams reached fever pitch when Harvard astronomer Percival Lowell convinced many that Mars was crisscrossed with canals built by an intelligent civilization.
In his new book "The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America," award-winning journalist and author David Baron unpacks this remarkable chapter of history.
Drawing on newly unearthed photographs, letters, and press accounts, Baron reveals how Lowell’s claims captivated scientists, journalists and the public, sparking a cultural obsession that echoed through literature, entertainment and even our visions of space exploration.
Both an epic of imagination and a cautionary tale of collective delusion, "The Martians" shows how our longing for life beyond Earth has shaped not only our view of Mars but also our understanding of ourselves.
