198) with the bitter rivalries, insecurities, and clashes of personalities among the expedition-goers.
The July 29, 1878, eclipse, which traversed much of the Mountain West, promised just such an opportunity several parties of astronomers ventured into the Rockies to test instruments and theories only possible during the fleeting minutes of totality.Īmerican Eclipse works best when Baron pairs the popular view of the eclipse expeditions of the time as “an an uplifting narrative, a tale of a nation’s enlightenment and undeniable progress” (p. Reflecting this newfound confidence, American scientists sought to match the scientific accomplishments and reputation of England, France, and Germany. Elsewhere, it “was settling into its larger, more muscular body, and it was beginning to exert its strength” (p. The writing at times suggests Baron has internalized the celebratory, confident ethos of his subjects, and seemingly gives agency to America’s national character: the nation “was industrializing and urbanizing, laying railways and telegraph lines” and “creating a maelstrom of growth” (p. Written for a broad popular audience, Baron’s retelling of astronomers’ chase of the 1878 total eclipse makes for entertaining, easily digested summer reading, replete with tales of real-life cowboys and Indians, grizzly murders, Thomas Edison, and the triumph of the American spirit.īaron presents American Eclipse as the telling of a heroic national epic, of “how an unfledged young nation came to embrace something much larger than itself-the enduring human quest for knowledge and truth” (p.
Keen enthusiasm and wonder fill Baron’s description of eclipses and their effects on observers: “Firm hands tremble, eloquent tongues freeze, sharp minds grow addled,” and prose falls like purple rain when in the presence of “an ebony pupil surrounded by a pearly iris … the eye of the cosmos” (p. On the first page of American Eclipse, David Baron describes the “visceral connection to the universe” and sense of being “transported to another planet, indeed to a higher plane of reality” that came with his first eclipse experience in 1998 (p. Reviewed by Brent Ruswick (West Chester University of Pennsylvania) American Eclipse: A Nation's Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World.
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