Accessory to War by Neil deGrasse Tyson and Avis Lang is a nonfiction book that describes the relationship between astronomy/astrophysics and war/politics. This book provides a history of both astronomy and astrology, describing how they “moved arm in arm with agriculture, trade, migration, empire, and war.”(Tyson and Lang 38) It then dives deep into how exactly a broad knowledge of astrophysics gives us a huge advantage during war, and more importantly, how most scientists don’t wish to use their knowledge to gain political power. In my opinion, the most notable theme in this book is the idea that innovation comes from the promise of money and power, and that we likely wouldn’t be nearly as advanced as a society without these two things. This concept caused me to question what the world might be like without greed and corruption, and if it would really be better. I found Accessory to War to be a bit slow at times, but I really liked how much context was given so that I was able to fully understand what the authors were referring to throughout the book. It bridged the gap between two vastly different topics in an engaging way. I do, however, think that it’s important to note that if you aren’t really interested in astronomy and politics already, you’d probably find this book to be very boring, as a large portion of it is spent describing how these two things have intertwined throughout history.
Comments