Comet Madness: How the 1910 Return of Halley's Comet (Almost) Destroyed Civilization by Richard Goodrich is an amazingly researched book about the media storm that surrounded the aforementioned 1910 Halley's Comet. Despite scientists' repeated and longsuffering assurances that Halley's Comet was not going to collide with Earth directly, or change weather patterns and set off earthquakes and volcanoes, or have its' tail envelope the world with cyanogen gases that would kill everyone by way of rapturous joy.

The book is filled with true (and fictional) stories that were published by newspapers trying to incite fear in the public to sell more copies. Goodrich also tries his best to clear Camille Flammarion's name, as he was an astronomer to whom newspapers often purposefully either misquoted or falsely attributed fantastical theories of the comet's effects on Earth.

Go ahead and pick up a copy of Comet Madness and enjoy the tale of how the world was (almost) destroyed.

Well done book. The research couldn't have been done better. WOW, a lot of hard work went into this!