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jsorense's review against another edition
3.0
(I'm writing this review of the book as a mass-market book - if it were intended as a purely academic work, I would probably rate it more highly)
Although it’s a good book that makes interesting points, I feel there’s a mismatch between the work and a mass-market audience that might leave a lot of readers disappointed. The book reads like a dissertation project, which I believe will probably be
* too dry
* too focused on listing supporting evidence instead of a clear and compelling flow, and
* too insistent on the significance and novelty of the author’s findings
to be an enjoyable read for most, even those with a layman’s interest in the subject.
The author’s main findings were that
* Rather than being a new phenomenon, private investment in space dates back more than 200 years, to cutting edge observatories financed by wealthy donors
* Signaling, not prestige, is the demand-side driver of space exploration
I found the first point to be the most interesting one, and the author does provide good evidence. I still didn’t walk away feeling completely convinced that the new perspective the author gives is the “right” one. As a reader I also got really bogged down in anecdote after anecdote about how individual observatories came to be financed.
The difference between signaling and prestige seemed too subtle to be as interesting to me as the first point. While I get the difference, it doesn’t seem big enough for me to know that it’s actually a novel idea.
Overall a good book that makes an interesting argument, but one that I feel will seem like "work" to most readers.
Although it’s a good book that makes interesting points, I feel there’s a mismatch between the work and a mass-market audience that might leave a lot of readers disappointed. The book reads like a dissertation project, which I believe will probably be
* too dry
* too focused on listing supporting evidence instead of a clear and compelling flow, and
* too insistent on the significance and novelty of the author’s findings
to be an enjoyable read for most, even those with a layman’s interest in the subject.
The author’s main findings were that
* Rather than being a new phenomenon, private investment in space dates back more than 200 years, to cutting edge observatories financed by wealthy donors
* Signaling, not prestige, is the demand-side driver of space exploration
I found the first point to be the most interesting one, and the author does provide good evidence. I still didn’t walk away feeling completely convinced that the new perspective the author gives is the “right” one. As a reader I also got really bogged down in anecdote after anecdote about how individual observatories came to be financed.
The difference between signaling and prestige seemed too subtle to be as interesting to me as the first point. While I get the difference, it doesn’t seem big enough for me to know that it’s actually a novel idea.
Overall a good book that makes an interesting argument, but one that I feel will seem like "work" to most readers.
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