The End of Night
Ratings4
Average rating4.5
A deeply panoramic tour of the night, from its brightest spots to the darkest skies we have left. A starry night is one of nature's most magical wonders. Yet in our artificially lit world, three-quarters of Americans' eyes never switch to night vision and most of us no longer experience true darkness. In The End of Night, Paul Bogard restores our awareness of the spectacularly primal, wildly dark night sky and how it has influenced the human experience across everything from science to art. From Las Vegas' Luxor Beam -- the brightest single spot on this planet -- to nights so starlit the sky looks like snow, Bogard blends personal narrative, natural history, science, and history to shed light on the importance of darkness -- what we've lost, what we still have, and what we might regain -- and the simple ways we can reduce the brightness of our nights tonight.
Reviews
Popular Reviews
Reviews with the most likes.
I love this book. It tells so much about the night, what does it means to the human and to the life on earth. Also it is a good book for planning a few trips around the globe. I choose this book randomly and end up with a lot of references for future reading.
I liked this book. There were parts of it that I didn't find as interesting as I had hoped, but I definitely enjoyed it and it delved into a lot of aspects of ‘night' that I hadn't expected.
Currently, about two-thirds of the Western world no longer experiences true night/darkness. It is estimated that 80 percent of children born in America today “will never know night dark enough that they can see the Milky Way.” This book explores why we should care about this, not only for aesthetic reasons, but for physiological and environmental reasons as well. Bogard visits the darkest areas left in the world and interviews astronomers, park rangers, and concerned citizens who are doing their part to take back the night. A sobering look at how far we've yet to go, but also offers some real hope that things can change.
