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Earthrise: How Man First Saw the Earth Paperback – February 23, 2010

by Robert Poole (Author)

5 customer reviews

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Earthrise tells the remarkable story of the first photographs of Earth from space and the totally unexpected impact of those images. The Apollo “Earthrise” and “Blue Marble” photographs were beamed across the world some forty years ago. They had an astounding effect, Robert Poole explains, and in fact transformed thinking about the Earth and its environment in a way that echoed throughout religion, culture, and science. Gazing upon our whole planet for the first time, we saw ourselves and our place in the universe with new clarity.

Poole delves into new areas of research and looks at familiar history from fresh perspectives. With intriguing anecdotes and wonderful pictures, he examines afresh the politics of the Apollo missions, the challenges of whole Earth photography, and the story of the behind-the-scenes struggles to get photographs of the Earth put into mission plans. He traces the history of imagined visions of Earth from space and explores what happened when imagination met reality. The photographs of Earth represented a turning point, Poole contends. In their wake, Earth Day was inaugurated, the environmental movement took off, and the first space age ended. People turned their focus back toward Earth, toward the precious and fragile planet we call home.

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Product Details

Paperback: 236 pages
Publisher: Yale University Press (February 23, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0300164033
ISBN-13: 978-0300164039
Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 5.2 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,645,684 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1555 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography & Video > History
- #1564 in Books > History > World > Expeditions & Discoveries
- #2028 in Books > Science & Math > Astronomy & Space Science > Astrophysics & Space Science

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Customer Reviews

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

A Captivating Look at Ourselves

By Colin Burgess on December 10, 2008

Format: Hardcover

Apollo 8 represented one of the most audacious decisions ever made in the history of space exploration. With the production of the spindly Lunar Module lagging and overdue, NASA took the bold step of sending a crew of three astronauts on a momentous journey from the Earth to the moon and back again. Undoubtedly it took the wind out of the sails of the Soviet effort in the titanic race to the moon, and we will always recall the deep poignancy as one by one the crew read from the book of Genesis that Christmas Eve of 1968. But there is another thing for which the journey of Apollo 8 will always be remembered, and that is the iconic photo we know as "Earthrise." Two celestial worlds in the one photograph, but the difference is profound. As mission commander Frank Borman states in this engrossing book, it was "the most beautiful, heart-catching sight of my life." Fellow crewmember James Lovell is also quoted as saying that "People down here don't realize what they have," while the third member of an otherwise fairly pragmatic crew , Bill Anders, reveals that he was "immediately almost overcome by the thought that here we came all this way to the moon, and yet the most significant thing we're seeing is our own home planet, the Earth."

This is a truly magnificent book, and not just because it explores the background of the cover photo and others, but in its own subtle way it causes us to take a good, long, hard look at ourselves. Many astronauts have said that it is a pity we can't all have the privilege of looking at our planet from space, because such things as wars and borders would become irrelevant in seeing Earth as a whole, united planet. We would embrace and want to protect it as our spectacularly sublime home, instead of trying our best to destroy or overwhelm it.Read more ›

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

Seeing Ourselves in the Mirror

By Space Fan on February 16, 2009

Format: Hardcover

A captivating and fascinating book, Earthrise brought back childhood memories of being glued to the TV on Christmas Eve, 1968 and hearing Borman, Lovell and Anders read from the Book of Genesis and signing off just before they went around the dark side of the moon by wishing a Merry Christmas and God's blessings to all of us "on the good earth". A few weeks later the famous Earthrise photo became public and I remember being so fascinated by the starkness between the the black of space, the gray of the moon and the blue and white "floating half-sphere" of our home.

The author Robert Poole does a great job capturing these 1968 moments again and subsequent moments of the lunar landing, the 1972 "Blue Marble" photo and other related tidbits of what seems like yesterday but is now surpassing 40 years. We have not looked at our home the same since...and those born after 1968 may not comprehend fully the impact of these photos on not only our national, but global society.

My only disappointment with the book and hence 4 stars has to do with some poor proof reading and fact checking. For example, "...waters called He seas." (see p. 26), a couple of references to "three-manned" Gemini missions (p. 69 and 125)- [they were all two-manned missions]; Jacques Cousteau "diving at an island off New Mexico." (p.120) and mention of a 1963 encyclical by Pius XII on page 132. Pius XII died in 1958. Finding this many errors in an otherwise very good book make me a bit skeptical that there may be other errors as well. I hope not!

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

Truly fascinating

By Carlos Wilton on January 30, 2009

Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

A truly fascinating book, good on the human element as well as the science. This is a book that trades in the power of symbols. It's an innovative approach, writing a history of an iconic symbol like the Earthrise photo. An important piece of documentary history for the space age.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

Engrossing study of how we view our home planet.

By AReader on December 10, 2008

Format: Hardcover

I found this book an engrossing read - an intriguing look at how humans view our planet from afar. What I found most interesting was not just the story of how images have been taken of our planet from space, but also how the taking of such images has apparently been long anticipated in human history. Through studies of paintings and writings made before the Space Age, Poole shows that the impact of such images was anticipated long before the images were made. He goes on to discuss how the images, when made, seem to have made a deep impression on a burgeoning environmental and conservation movement. An interesting study of how the precise literalism of hard engineering can awaken nebulous, imaginative, creative free-thinking on a large scale.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

Great book about a great subject

By F. Spier on February 26, 2009

Format: Hardcover

In this book, Robert Poole provides a long-awaited overview of history of the Earthrise photo, possibly one of the most influential pictures ever taken. For many of those who watched this drama unfold in the nineteen sixties (I was one of them), the Earthrise picture signaled a deep change in how humans looked at their home planet, which may well have been as significant as the Copernican revolution at the end of the Middle Ages. Poole does a great job in placing this within a long-term historical context, while he does not respect any boundaries between history and the natural sciences (which I think is great). Perhaps inevitably, there are a few errors here and there which could have been avoided, yet they do not diminish the book's general value in any way. In my opinion, this book is a "must read" for especially those academics who may be sceptical about these things. I recommend it also to any intelligent person who cares about how we look at our planet and, as a consequence, ourselves, today.

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