Book: Intelligent Life In The Universe by I.S. Shklovskii and Carl Sagan

This book, first published in 1966, is a product of a unique international collaboration between a world famous Russian astronomer and a leading American space scientist, the first popular and modern discussion of the entire panorama of natural evolution. You can buy it online or borrow it on loan at the Internet Archive.

In Sagan’s description of his remarkable collaboration with Shklovskii, conducted entirely by mail with the Russian scientist in the Soviet Union and Sagan in the U.S., he explains they were never able “to discuss the present edition in person. ‘The probability of our meeting is unlikely to be smaller than the probability of a visit to the Earth by a extraterrestrial cosmonaut,” Shklovskii once wrote him. Throughout the book, Sagan adds “about as much material as there was in the work initially” and was the sole author of “the figures and captions.”

In addition to clarifying many concepts for layman and authoring new material in chapters such as those titled, “Optical Contact Among Galactic Civilization,” Sagan offers fascinating asides about Sumerian mythology and “an enigmatic semi-fish, semi-quadrapede Oannes” (Irish Astronomical Journal). The book won early praise as “fascinating… in concept, scope and execution, the book is as big as its subject” (Christian Science Monitor), and Isaac Asimov called Intelligent Life in the Universe “sheer pleasure,” a testimony to “the brotherhood of science.” To Nobel Laureate H.J. Muller, the book’s expansive reach “is second to none in importance” and Newsweek hailed it as “a unique collaboration-by-mail between two distinguished astronomers.”

Astrobiology, SETI,