In Chasing Venus, New York Times Best Selling and award-winning author Andrea Wulf tells the extraordinary story of the first global scientific collaboration—set amid warring armies, savage weather, and bitter rivalries. On two days in 1761 and 1769, astronomers across the world cast their eyes to the sky to witness a rare sight: Venus traveling across the face of the sun. The two transits were to become the most significant astronomical events in scientific history, as by recording the path of Venus and comparing results, these men hoped to calculate the dimensions of our solar system—one of the most pressing questions of the Enlightenment.

Chasing Venus is told as a race across the world and features a cast of some of the most recognizable names in world history, among them Benjamin Franklin, James Cook, Mason and Dixon, and Catherine the Great. It is a thrilling adventure story, a tale of personal tragedy and obsession, and an inspiring account of Enlightenment science and man’s quest to understand the universe.

Andrea Wulf was born in India and moved to Germany as a child. She lives in Britain, where she trained as a design historian at the Royal College of Art. She is the author of The Brother Gardeners: Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession (longlisted for the 2008 Samuel Johnson Prize and winner of the 2010 American Horticultural Society Book Award), as well as Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation, and co-author of This Other Eden: Seven Great Gardens and 300 Years of English History. She has written for the New York Times, the LA Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Times, the Guardian, and many others. She is a three-time fellow of the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello. www.andreawulf.com

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