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Conversations with Carl Sagan (Literary Conversations)
Conversations with Carl Sagan - Literary Conversations Author:Tom Head Though a well-regarded physicist Carl Sagan (1934-1996) was best-known during his life and best remembered now as a writer of popular nonfiction and science fiction, and as the host of the PBS series Cosmos. Through his writings and spoken commentary, he worked to popularize interests in astronomy, the universe, and the possibility of extraterr... more »estrial life. From the beginning of his public career, when he co-wrote Intelligent Life in the Universe with Soviet astronomer I.S. Shklovskii, to the very end as he worked on the 1997 film adaptation of his novel Contact, these were the subjects that absorbed him. Yet this interest in space was not rooted in science fiction, but rather in his understanding of the smallness and vulnerability of humanity measured against the immense size and power of the universe. This profound philosophical humility, mixed with the personal exuberance he frequently showed in debates and in his groundbreaking television series Cosmos, comes through in Conversations with Carl Sagan. In this collection of interviews and profiles, Sagan discusses with verve the wide variety of topics on which he has writtenthe environment, nuclear disarmament, religion, politics, extraterrestrial life, astronomy, physics, robotics. Whether discussing his science fiction or his well-researched nonfiction works, his voice is one that embraces reason and skepticism. An active promoter of science education and a recognized authority on science and its effects on humanity, Sagan used the interview form to elaborate on ideas that had been reduced to sound bites. His atheism, fueled by an agonizing sense of the vulnerability of the human race, touched off many fierce debates. Although a lifelong skeptic, this volume shows how Sagan clarified and refined his views, and expressed amazement that Earth, for all his belief in extraterrestrial life, encompasses everything about which he cared.« less