American Eclipse Book

American Eclipse by David Baron. Explores "a nation's epic race to catch the shadow of the moon and win the glory of the world." "American Eclipse" is about the popular impression of the 1878 solar eclipse as observed across the United States. It won the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award in 2018. Follows three scientists, James Craig Watson, Maria Mitchell, and Thomas Edison as they traveled to view the total solar eclipse on July 29, 1878. Depicts a young nation that looked to the skies to reveal its towering ambition and expose its latent genius. A fascinating portrait of the Gilded Age. Hardcover edition. 2017. Liveright/W.W. Norton. 330 pages.