This book offers a first step toward spanning the gap between the writing of male critics of speculative fiction, who do not devote enough attention to the contributions of new female voices to this g
Strange Shadows opens a window into the dark, visionary worlds of Clark Ashton Smith, whose "verbal black magic" was a significant force in the American science fiction and fantasy movement of the 193
Since the publication of his first short stories in the 1950s, Kurt Vonnegut has enjoyed much popular acclaim and has, since the 1970s, gained growing amounts of attention from the scholarly community
Bartter surveys 250 American science-fiction stories, and American SF novels--with occasional overlaps of stories made into episodic novels--that have some relationship, often direct, sometimes margin
Was it coincidence that the modern state and modern science arose at the same time? This overview of the relations of science and state from the Scientific Revolution to World War II explores this issue, synthesising a range of approaches from history and political theory. John Gascoigne argues the case for an ongoing mutual dependence of the state and science in ways which have promoted the consolidation of both. Drawing on a wide body of scholarship, he shows how the changing functions of the state have brought a wider engagement with science, while the possibilities that science make available have increased the authority of the state along with its prowess in war. At the end of World War II, the alliance between science and state was securely established and, Gascoigne argues, is still firmly embodied in the post-war world.
On May 25, 1961, President John Kennedy declared: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safe
The book will identify landscape scars as significant contemporary cultural tools for memory work and future orientation. The metaphor 'landscape scars' highlights the flipside of industrial materiali
When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, limits on NASA funding and the lack of direction under the Nixon and Carter administrations had left the U.S. space program at a crossroads. In contrast to his
Using newlydeclassified documents, this book explores why U.S. military leaders afterWorld War II sought to monitor the far north and understand the physicalenvironment of Greenland, a crucial territo
Despite the wealth of information and archival material that has become available in the years following the fall of the USSR, the history of the Soviet space program has been dominated by the account
Bigfoot hunters and their brethren are often depicted as outcasts, misfits, or passionate amateurs toiling in solitude. But has this always been the case? This fresh and entertaining study looks at th
While there are many biographies of John F. Kennedy and numerous accounts of the early years of US space efforts, there has to date been no comprehensive account of how the actions taken by JFK’
From the recovery of ancient ritual magic at the height of the Renaissance to the ignominious demise of alchemy at the dawn of the Enlightenment, Mark A. Waddell explores the rich and complex ways that premodern people made sense of their world. He describes a time when witches flew through the dark of night to feast on the flesh of unbaptized infants, magicians conversed with angels or struck pacts with demons, and astrologers cast the horoscopes of royalty. Ground-breaking discoveries changed the way that people understood the universe while, in laboratories and coffee houses, philosophers discussed how to reconcile the scientific method with the veneration of God. This engaging, illustrated new study introduces readers to the vibrant history behind the emergence of the modern world.
From the recovery of ancient ritual magic at the height of the Renaissance to the ignominious demise of alchemy at the dawn of the Enlightenment, Mark A. Waddell explores the rich and complex ways that premodern people made sense of their world. He describes a time when witches flew through the dark of night to feast on the flesh of unbaptized infants, magicians conversed with angels or struck pacts with demons, and astrologers cast the horoscopes of royalty. Ground-breaking discoveries changed the way that people understood the universe while, in laboratories and coffee houses, philosophers discussed how to reconcile the scientific method with the veneration of God. This engaging, illustrated new study introduces readers to the vibrant history behind the emergence of the modern world.
