I first met Neil deGrasse Tyson in London in 2019, when I was working on the European tour for his latest bestseller. He was tall and charming, with a sonorous laugh so notable I would later discover it has its own compilation mix on YouTube. Eschewing small talk, he’d ask me who built, engineered or designed every statue or underground station we drove past. “So, this is what it’s like to hang out with the world’s most famous astrophysicist,” I thought.
The trouble with explaining New York-based Tyson to the uninitiated, or those outside America, is that he’s both a trailblazer in his profession – regarded as one of the best science communicators of his generation – and a ubiquitous presence in popular culture. Which is to say, you’ll be just as likely to know him from a meme on Twitter or his regular appearances on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert as you would from his distinguished career as director of the Hayden Planetarium, the author of multiple New York Times bestsellers, and the host of such acclaimed TV documentary series as Cosmos.
His latest book, Starry Messenger: Cosmic perspectives on civilisation, is an attempt to straddle these two cultural stratospheres. He’s less interested in explaining the physics of outer space or how it might feel to be in a black hole. Instead, he has turned his scientific lens to the political hot potatoes of the day – from global conflict to gender-identity issues, racial and sexual inequality, and even vegetarianism.
It’s intended to be a “wake-up call to civilisation”, but not everyone has been convinced by the pivot. “Neil deGrasse Tyson tries punditry, with less-than-stellar results”, read the headline on the ’s review. The noted he had been out of the public eye for a while, following allegations of has once again made its bestseller list.
