A fascinating look at early thinking about astrobiology and the Martian canal debate from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The Victorian language and sometimes lengthy discussions probably don't lend themselves to casual reading, though.

The entirety of this books was picking apart someone else theory almost line for line and proving it wrong. Where as I am in agreement its wrong as it is an OLD theory, both are infact. I feel the book could have better been used to promote the author's own theory to stand on its own without attacki

The alternate/collaborator of Darwin. And When i read some Darwin i thought i should read something by Wallace. Interesting enough, and clearly correct as a refutation, but - through no fault of his - quite dated. It is impressive how fast humanity has gone from hardly being able to see Mars to bein

A bit dry, but it really helped me grasp just how brilliant the early 1900's scientists were. And they did it all with slide rules and on paper.

Amazing what was observable and deducible with such primitve equipment.

Wallace was one of the first to dispute Lowell's theory of civilized Mars, and he puts down Lowell hard. Planetary science is no place for those with thin skins!

(lido em Chengdu, China)

The Book "Is Mars Habitable?" is a scientific critique of Percival Lowell's conjectures that intelligent life exists or existed on Mars and built the canals. Lowell was an amateur astronomer, whereas Wallace is a professional scientist and a little more rigorous in his application of science to Mars