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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze That Captured Turn-Of-The-Century America

The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze That Captured Turn-Of-The-Century America

Baron, David
Greenbaum, Rob

Audio Book

Anthropology20th Century United States HistoryAstronomy & Space

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN13: 9798228657434
Publisher: HighBridge Audio
Published: Aug 26 2025
Language: English
In the early 1900s, many Americans actually believed we had discovered intelligent life on Mars, as bestselling science writer David Baron chronicles in The Martians, his truly bizarre tale of a nation swept up in Mars mania.

At the center of Baron's historical drama is Percival Lowell, the Boston Brahmin and Harvard scion, who observed canals etched into the surface of Mars. Lowell devised a grand theory that the red planet was home to a utopian society that had built gargantuan ditches to funnel precious meltwater from the polar icecaps to desert farms and oasis cities. The public fell in love with the ambitious amateur astronomer who shared his findings in speeches and wildly popular books.

While at first people treated the Martians whimsically―Martians headlining Broadway shows, biologists speculating whether they were winged or gilled―the discussion quickly became serious. Inventor Nikola Tesla announced he had received radio signals from Mars; Alexander Graham Bell agreed there was no escape from the conviction that intelligent beings inhabited the planet. Martian excitement reached its zenith when Lowell financed an expedition to photograph Mars from Chile's Atacama Desert, resulting in what newspapers hailed as proof of the Martian canals' existence.

4 different editions

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