Matthew Shindell: Lunar [2024] hardback

A beautiful showcase of hand-drawn geological charts of the Moon, combined with a retelling of the symbolic and mythical associations of Earth’s satellite.

President Kennedy’s rousing ‘We will go to the Moon’ speech on 25 May 1961 set Project Apollo in motion and spurred on scientists at the US Geological Survey in their efforts to carry out geologic mapping of the Moon. Over the next 11 years a team of 22 created 44 superb charts – one for each named quadrangle on the Earthside of the Moon.

In Lunar, for the first time, you can see every beautifully hand-drawn and coloured chart accompanied by expert analysis and interpretation by Smithsonian science curator Matthew Shindell. Long a source of wonder, fascination and symbolic significance, the Moon was crucial to prehistoric man in their creation of a calendar; it played a key role in ancient creator myths and astrology; and if has often been associated with madness. Every mythical and cultural association of the Moon throughout history is explored in this sumptuous volume, culminating in the 1969 Moon landing, which heralded the beginning of a whole new scientific journey.