Review: Voyager by Stephen J. Pyne

Voyager by Stephen J Pyne

(This review first appeared in the New York Journal of Books.)

Voyager: Seeking Newer Worlds in the Third Great Age of Discovery by Stephen J. Pyne is a book that aims to set the West's exploration of the Solar System in its historical context. Pyne, a historian at Arizona State University, has an "organizing conceit" for looking at this context based around three broad ages of discovery.

The first began with the great voyages of discovery by...