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In the grand tradition of the scholar-adventurer, acclaimed

author Richard Cohen takes us around the world to illuminate our

relationship with the star that gives us life. Whether floating in

a skiff on the Ganges as the Sun descends behind the funeral pyres

of Varanasi, interviewing psychologists in the Norwegian Arctic

about the effects of darkness, or watching tomato seedlings in

southern Spain being hair-brushed (the better to catch the Sun’s

rays), Cohen tirelessly pursues his quarry.

Drawing on more than seven years of research, he reports from

locations in eighteen different countries, including the

Novolazarevskaya science station in Antarctica (the coldest place

on Earth); the Arizona desert (the sunniest); the Pope’s

observatory-cum-fortress outside Rome (possible the least

accessible); and the crest of Mount Fuji, where—entirely alone—he

welcomes the sunrise on the longest day of the year.

As he soon discovers, the Sun is present everywhere—in mythology,

language, religion, sciences, art, literature, and medicine; in the

ocean depths; even atop the Statue of Liberty. Ancient worshippers

believed our star was a man with three eyes and four arms,

abandoned by his spouse because his brightness made her weary. The

early Christians appropriated the halo from sun imagery and saw the

cross as an emblem of the Sun and its rays. Galileo was the first

to espy blemishes on the solar surface—sunspots—but hid his

discoveries for fear of persecution. Einstein helped duplicate the

source of the Sun’s power to create the atomic bomb; while the “Sun

King” Louis XIV, Chairman Mao, Adolf Hitler, and the Japanese

emperors all co-opted the Sun to enlarge their authority. Conan

Doyle had Sherlock Holmes declare that even thinking about the

solar system took up too much space in his brain, while Richard

Wagner had Tristan inveigh against daylight as the enemy of

romantic love.

Packed with interesting figures (the Sun is responsible for 44

percent of the world’s tidal energy, and when aligned with the

Moon, as at high tide, makes us all minutely taller); extraordinary

myths (in India, just a few years ago, pregnant women were still

being kept indoors during an eclipse, for fear their babies would

be born blind or with cleft palates); and surprising anecdotes

(during the Vietnam War, a large number of mines dropped into

Haiphong harbor blew up simultaneously in response to a large solar

flare), this splendidly illustrated volume is erudite, informative,

and supremely entertaining. It not only explains the star that so

inspires us, but shows how complex our relations with it have

been—and continue to be.

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Richard Cohen is the former publishing director

of Hutchinson and Hodder & Stoughton and the founder of Richard

Cohen Books. The acclaimed author of By the Sword: A History of

Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic

Champions, he has written for The New York Times and most

leading London newspapers, and has appeared on BBC radio and

television. He lives in New York City.

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编辑推荐

“Chasing the Sun is both a grand history of civilization

and an irresistible account of an around-the-world odyssey in

search of an elusive moving target. Richard Cohen collects

fascinating stories with the exuberance and erudition of a

Victorian explorer filling a curio cabinet with rare specimens.

This is an amazing tour de force.”—Sylvia Nasar, author of A

Beautiful Mind

“Chasing the Sun is quite an extraordinary book, which I

absolutely loved. I found it impossible to read in a few sittings,

but sort of sat around regularly sunbathing in its information

afterglow. It’s a dazzling solar encyclopedia but also a fabulously

provoking history of discoveries, dreams, and delusions. I shall

bask in its shimmering digressions, crazy cross-references, and

dizzy overviews for many moons.”—Richard Holmes, author of The

Age of Wonder