Lunar: A History of the Moon in Myths, Maps and Matter

It’s been a while since I discussed science books for scifi readers, and that’s due to all my down time, not any lack of great books. But then I found something different: Lunar, A History of the Moon in Myths, Maps and Matter, edited by Mathew Shindell, who is Curator of Planetary Science at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. This is a big, beautiful book that needs to be read in the hardback edition to appreciate its many maps and illustrations. It brings together the full color atlas of the near-side lunar surface from the U.S. Geological Survey with thoughtful essays on a great variety of moon subjects from ancient myth to contemporary films. It’s a treasure as a reference but also an interesting book to read straight through.

A leading theme of the essays is how the moon has dominated the human imagination, both in early myth and astronomical observation and in representations in the industrial era, long before space programs became a focus of national and international investment. Lunar records many moments in that history, including the state of science and knowledge during preparation of the Lunar Atlas in the 1960s and 70s.

The book offers glimpses of the myriad views of the moon in a wide range of cultural settings. It draws on some evidence of prehistoric recordings of phases of the moon as well as the fully developed depictions in Egyptian hieroglyphics, paintings and sculpture and Babylonian astronomy. While there are essays on the Lakota views of the moon and the universe and on Mayan representations, the primary emphasis is on the evolution of thinking leading from the Egyptians to Greece, Rome and the medieval European worldview. I would have liked to see sections on Arab, Indian and Chinese astronomy, not to mention other indigenous cosmologies from around the world, but what Lunar does cover is thoughtfully concise and informative, as well as visually beautiful.

While the essays each take on a different subject, as a whole they tend to track the range of human responses to the moon. They first record its symbolism in religion as a motive of devotion and awe, then gradually show how the scientific and industrial revolutions led not only to more and more detailed study but also to the manipulation of its imagery in popular books and films and ultimately to its reduction to the status of potential mining colony and way station to other destinations in the solar system.

The essay on Lakota beliefs about the moon, and indeed the interrelationship of the universe and human life, offers a radical critique of most of this history. It contrasts the close reflection of relations among Sun, Moon and stars within human relationships with efforts to subjugate the social and material worlds into a transactional analysis of ownership and colonialism. It raises the interesting question of the ethics of the mainstream scientific and industrial view of the world, contrasting a worldview of the sacred with one of utilitarian progress.

As the essays explain, from the time telescopes were developed, and even long before, there was a steady stream of fantastical writings about moon voyages and, as telescopy improved, picture books of its strange surface. One of the most famous of these in the 19th century presented photographs, not of telescopic images, but of plaster casts carefully replicating observed craters and mountains and illuminated in a studio to replicate lighting conditions on the moon.

The essay on the moon in silent film mentions that the industrial revolution made all sorts of impossible things seem possible and likely stimulated writers and artists to let their imaginations extend to the moon and space. That raises the difficult question of whether there is something in this tendency to seize on even parts of the universe as fodder for mental manipulation, whether by art or industry, that clashes so fundamentally with indigenous values. That idea came to a head for me in the essay on the “selling” of the idea of exploring the moon to the American public. In the 1950s and early 60s, there was a concerted public relations effort, led by figures like Willy Ley, Werner Von Braun, and the artist Chesley Bonestell, to popularize a national investment in the effort. Bonestell’s artwork of rocketships and space-suited explorers on the moon played a great role in this, as did the many films, both dramatic and documentary that came out in the 50s and early 60s. Important as this was in getting the world interested in space exploration, it seemed to turn the grandeur of the nearest celestial body into another space for conquest.

Several essays record the history of space exploration and the many cinematic treatments, both dramatic and documentary, of its major achievements. One of the last essays is a wide ranging survey of contemporary artistic representations of the moon. It examines rhapsodic American views of the moon landings by Rauschenberg and Warhol but also the work of social critics who saw the whole enterprise as a wasteful expenditure in the midst of the Vietnam War and intense social struggles. The essay covers feminist views of the response to the moon as well as an Australian First Nations artistic rendering that brings us back to an alternate reality and conception of life itself, as does the Lakota essay. This survey extends to Japanese and Ghanaian artists to show the reach and variety of reactions to the meaning of the moon in the contemporary world.

The backbone of Lunar is the array of atlas quadrangles from the U.S. Geological Survey. The editor points out that the atlas must itself be seen as the product of a historical moment, when the space race was getting into high gear, and there is now a great deal of knowledge supplementing what was known at that time. Nevertheless, Lunar makes a beautiful presentation of each color quadrangle with discussions of every major physical and geological feature. Taken as a whole, Lunar, A History of the Moon in Myths, Maps and Matter, is a stunning presentation that gives you the material to view and think about the moon from multiple perspectives. It’s a great introduction to an endlessly fascinating subject that taps into the roots of human thought and wonder.