Description
Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Publisher: Harper & Row
Place: New York
Year: 1968
Edition: 1968 Harper & Row hardcover edition; printing code G-S
Format: Hardcover with original dust jacket
Page Count: 325 pages
Condition: Very Good / Very Good dust jacket
Description
Published in the landmark year of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke's The Promise of Space captures the extraordinary optimism and imagination of the early Space Age.
Writing just before humans first walked on the Moon, Clarke looks back at the achievements that transformed space travel from fantasy into science and then turns his attention toward what might come next. He explores rockets, satellites, lunar exploration, interplanetary travel, solar sailing, the possibility of settlements on other worlds, and humanity's eventual movement farther into the cosmos.
What makes the book particularly fascinating today is the opportunity to encounter the future as Clarke envisioned it in 1968. His projections combine genuine scientific and engineering knowledge with the imagination that made him one of the defining figures of twentieth-century science fiction.
The book was released in 1968, the same year as Stanley Kubrick and Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. A contemporary review described The Promise of Space as intended for intelligent general readers interested in the how and why of astronautics without requiring extensive technical knowledge.
Clarke was uniquely positioned to write such a book. Long before the modern satellite communications industry, he famously explored the potential of geostationary communications satellites, while his fiction helped shape the popular imagination of space exploration.
Illustrated throughout, The Promise of Space is both a vintage history of astronautics and a remarkable period document from a moment when much of humanity's future in space still seemed unwritten.
Condition: Very Good hardcover in Very Good original dust jacket. Binding is sound and interior is clean overall. Previous owner's name and address written in ink on the front endpaper. Dust jacket shows light age and shelf wear with minor edge wear consistent with its age and is now protected in a removable archival Brodart cover.
Please review photographs, which form part of the condition description.
Why We Love This Book
Few books capture the optimism of the Space Age quite like this one. Published in 1968—before the Apollo 11 Moon landing—The Promise of Space lets us see the future through the eyes of one of the people who helped imagine it.
For collectors of Arthur C. Clarke, vintage science and technology, space exploration, and classic science fiction, it is an evocative artifact of an extraordinary moment in twentieth-century history.