Aurora: The Mysterious Northern Lights

"Highly recommended."
Choice

"A beautifully illustrated history of the ways people in various cultures have explained the aurora."
Chicago Tribune

Even those who have not had the privilege of seeing auroras know that there is something magical about them. But few of us understand why or how they occur. What brings the night sky to life with these curtains of light? What makes them dance and swirl? Where do they come from, and what do they mean?

Since ancient times, people have pondered these questions. Could the polar lights be invoked as healing spirits for shamans? Could they rescue souls from death? Were they visions from God - a divine warning that foretold calamity and bloodshed on earth? Throughout the ages, the sheer magnificence and eerie grandeur of the aurora have evoked both fear and wonder.

As beguiling as the auroral legends are, however, the scientific explanation for the lights is no less awe-inspiring. In clear, intelligent text accompanied by dozens of archival illustrations, diagrams, and color photographs, Candace Savage explores the myth and science behind the aurora. She reveals the surprisingly common threads in the auroral traditions of distant cultures and follows the long, colorful and sometimes fractious path that led scientists to the contemporary theory about the lights.

Savage cuts through the morass of geophysical data and mathematical formulae to give us a lucid and fascinating account of how the lights happen. The modern explanation, only serves to increase our sense of awe and mystery about a phenomenon that is our link to vast, uncontrollable, and unseen forces that shape the universe.