Apollo In the Age of Aquarius – Neil M. Maher
Apollo in the Age of Aquarius is about the way NASA influenced social movements and social movements influenced NASA in the 1960s and 70s. The author covers a wide range of social movements, which can give it the feel of an overview, and sometimes he loses his chronology, as his book is ordered topically. But I thought his argument was interesting and he clearly did his research. The Vietnam chapter was interesting but not altogether convincing, though kudos to Maher for digging up what he did on the Vietnamese and Russians in space. Maher has a really interesting argument to be made and a good framework for analysis, but there are so many moving parts that sometimes that analysis gets condensed down to just a sentence, and falls a bit flat. While he has really interesting and detailed examinations of each social movement he discusses, and did very impressive work with his primary sources, he does not link the social movements together very well, which I think is odd because they were concomitant and also in dialogue with each other. I learned a lot from the book, and I think it’s a valuable read and addition to the canon, but there were some weak spots that left me wanting more.
