{"product_id":"intro-to-lit-childhoods-end-arthur-c-clarke","title":"Intro to Lit.  CHILDHOODS END, Arthur C. Clarke","description":"\u003cp\u003ePublished: 1953, 220 pages\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDialectic Journal\/Lesson Plans: 89 pages,33153 words, visuals\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eChildhood’s End was written between February and December 1952, then extensively revised in the spring of 1953. The first section was based on an earlier story, “Guardian Angel,” published in 1950, after a good deal of creative editing by James Blish. \u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cspan\u003e I mention these dates to put the tale in historical perspective, as the great majority of today’s readers were not even born when the first Ballantine edition appeared on August 24, 1953. The first Earth satellite was still four years in the future—though not even the most optimistic space enthusiast dreamed it was that close; “around the turn of the century” was the best we had hoped for. If anyone had told me that, before the next decade had ended, I would be standing ten kilometers away from the first spaceship lifting off for the moon, I would have laughed at him. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cspan\u003e Yet this book was already sixteen years old when Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the Sea of Tranquillity and the race between the United States and the USSR was conclusively won. In 1989, I updated the opening to bring the narrative forward into the next century; I was halfway through this task when, on the twentieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, President Bush announced that Mars would be the next goal of the U.S. space program. It was a goal, unfortunately, that was soon forgotten. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cspan\u003e For this edition, I have reverted to the original opening—but have also given the 1989 one as an appendix, partly for sentimental reasons. Five years ago, I was privileged to visit Star City—one of the first westerners to do so, thanks to the influence of my friend Cosmonaut Alexi Leonov. I stood in front of that famous statue and have been in Yuri Gagarin’s office, where the clock is stopped at the time of his death. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mr. Brovsky's Office","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51268409426136,"sku":"5 lbs.","price":29.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/8862\/2040\/files\/childhoods-end-2-e1438101017207.webp?v=1767828507","url":"https:\/\/mr-brovsky.myshopify.com\/products\/intro-to-lit-childhoods-end-arthur-c-clarke","provider":"Mr. Brovsky's Office","version":"1.0","type":"link"}