Join Amazon Prime and get unlimited Free One-Day Delivery. Already a member? Sign in.

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
More Buying Choices
11 used & new from £5.96
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Welcome to Mars: Fantasies of Science in the American Century, 1947-1959
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

Welcome to Mars: Fantasies of Science in the American Century, 1947-1959 (Paperback)

by Ken Hollings (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
RRP: £11.99
Price: £8.99 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £3.00 (25%)
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

Only 5 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

Want guaranteed delivery by Tuesday, July 7? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details
9 new from £5.96 1 used from £8.85 1 collectible from £12.50

Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with The Daemon: A Guide to Your Extraordinary Secret Self by Anthony Peake

Welcome to Mars: Fantasies of Science in the American Century, 1947-1959 + The Daemon: A Guide to Your Extraordinary Secret Self
Price For Both: £16.48

Show availability and shipping details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Bad Science

Bad Science

by Ben Goldacre
4.6 out of 5 stars (138)  £4.85
The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century

The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century

by Alex Ross
4.5 out of 5 stars (28)  £7.49
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The: Century 1910

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The: Century 1910

by Alan Moore
3.5 out of 5 stars (14)  £4.49
Medical London: City of Diseases, City of Cures

Medical London: City of Diseases, City of Cures

by Richard Barnett
4.7 out of 5 stars (3)  £16.80
The Daemon: A Guide to Your Extraordinary Secret Self

The Daemon: A Guide to Your Extraordinary Secret Self

by Anthony Peake
5.0 out of 5 stars (2)  £7.49
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 200 pages
  • Publisher: Strange Attractor (14 Nov 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0954805488
  • ISBN-13: 978-0954805487
  • Product Dimensions: 21 x 14.4 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 57,489 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Product Description
A story of weird science, strange events and even stranger beliefs, set in an age when the possibilities for human development seemed almost limitless, Welcome to Mars offers a fascinating, detailed chronology of where it all went wrong.

In his own inimitable style, Ken Hollings draws upon newspaper accounts, advertising campaigns, declassified government archives, old movies and newsreels from the period to depict an unsettled time in which the layout of suburbia reflected atomic bombing strategies, bankers and movie stars experimented with hallucinogens, brainwashing was just another form of interior decoration and strange lights in the sky were taken very seriously indeed. After Welcome to Mars, you ll never be able to think about the 1950s the same way again.

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
Check the boxes next to the tags you consider relevant or enter your own tags in the field below
(2)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
See all 10 tags...

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Welcome to Mars: Fantasies of Science in the American Century, 1947-1959
96% buy the item featured on this page:
Welcome to Mars: Fantasies of Science in the American Century, 1947-1959 4.0 out of 5 stars (1)
£8.99
Destroy All Monsters
4% buy
Destroy All Monsters 4.0 out of 5 stars (3)
£8.99
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

1 Review
5 star:    (0)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
4.0 out of 5 stars The Cabaret Voltaire album that never was, 9 May 2009
By Earthshaker (London, UK) - See all my reviews
In this book Ken Hollings examines several key strands in American culture immediately following the Second World War: the fear of nuclear annihilation, the proximity of space (taking the form of flying saucer panics, alien contact fantasies and the more mundane space race against the Soviet Union), the growth of suburbia and the studies of human consciousness that included LSD research and investigations of "brain-washing". As well as narrating events in these areas during the late 40s and the 1950s, he examines the way in which a society's concerns and self-image were fed back to it through the medium of popular culture, in particular science-fiction B-movies (the image of the feedback loop, of course, itself derives from the new science of cybernetics).

There are connections between these spheres, of course: to pluck one example from many, the developer of some of the earliest planned suburban communities had begun his career building secret housing, not appearing on any maps, for workers in the atom bomb programme. Personnel appear and reappear in the different strands of the story to the extent that it can be difficult to keep track, which is perhaps the point. Hollings' modus operandi is the rapid shuffle between narratives, the jump cut that juxtaposes two strands: his chronological framework commits him to this rapid switching, but it is also one of the means whereby he builds up a convincing structure. In the end, this is perhaps not so much history, or at least orthodox "balanced" history (in which one would be required to look more closely at how representative certain figures actually were), as one history, one possible use of the facts, a paranoid riff in which images from reality are selected and juxtaposed in cut-up fashion. Hence the Cabaret Voltaire comparison: both subject matter and technique are closely analogous to the Sheffield Dadaists' work in music.

The caveats about the extent to which this is "history" are not to say, I hasten to add, that what Hollings tells us is untrue - and there are some stories in here that make the blood boil even without the addition of sinister conspiratorial overtones, such as the use of disabled children as guinea-pigs in the ingestion of radioactive substances, or the work of Dr Ewan Cameron (and his British associate William Walters Sargent) in attempting to wipe and reprogramme the human mind, using mental hospital patients as raw material (both men shared what could be described as a robust approach to patient rights, something that Sargent's personal papers, deposited in a public archive and freely available for consultation, bear out). However, history as understood in the academy is not really the point here: the objective is a forensic analysis of a culture, western scientific capitalist consumerism; the way in which, as Ballard told us all along, the public domain is a reflection of inner wants and fears, the stated justification for public actions often a long way from the real motivation; and the way in which this environment shaped the children who were born into it and grew up to be the sixties generation. The experience of all this is rather reminiscent of reading Pynchon's fictions (a comparison Hollings himself draws in the introduction) - a bewildering web of connections, forever on the verge of taking shape and resolving themselves into a clear picture of the big conspiracy, but never quite doing so. Non-fiction novel, paranoid history, prose Cabaret Voltaire LP: read it yourself and decide for yourself (if "they" haven't already planted in your head what they want you to believe....).
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

 Beta (What's this?)
This product's forum (0 discussions)
  Discussion Replies Latest Post
  No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
  [Cancel]


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject













i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

The Body Shop

The Body Shop - Vitamin C Skin Boost
Protect and boost your glow with The Body Shop Vitamin C Skin Boost.

›Shop The Body Shop

  

Make A Wish

Get what you want with an Amazon.co.uk Wish List Make sure you always get what you want with an Amazon.co.uk Wish List.

›More info on Wish Lists

  

We've Got Converse

Converse
Stock up on your favourite styles with great deals on Converse shoes.

›Shop Converse

  

Treat Someone

Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificates--available in any amount from £5 to £500 With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is).

›Learn more about Gift Certificates

  
Ad

Where's My Stuff?

Delivery and Returns

Need Help?

Your Recent History

  (What's this?)
You have no recently viewed items or searches.

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.

Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.
Continue Shopping: Top Sellers

amazon.co.uk Amazon Home
International Sites:  United States  |  Germany  |  France  |  Japan  |  Canada  |  China
Business Programs: Sell on Amazon  |  Fulfilment by Amazon  |  Join Associates  |  Join Advantage
Customer Service  |  Help  |  View Basket  |  Your Account
About Amazon.co.uk  |  Careers at Amazon
Conditions of Use & Sale |  Privacy Notice  © 1996-2009, Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates