A richly illustrated collection that maps twenty historical journeys.
Adventures in Maps features twenty awe-inspiring journeys, ranging in distances from a few miles to great treks across land, sea, air, and space. Some chart the route a traveler followed, while some are the fruits of exploration, and others were made to help future travelers find their way.
Among these maps are sea charts depicting the sixteenth-century adventures of Richard Hawkins sailing to South America, the surveys of Captain James Cook, and the route followed by pioneering solo yachtswoman Naomi James. On land, we travel North America's Route 66, follow the archaeological expeditions of David Hogarth along the Euphrates and Aurel Stein on the Silk Road, experience Thomas Cook's first package tour, and move with pilgrims making their way across Europe. By air and space, we learn the stories of the Arctic explorations needed to enable a Great Circle route by air over Greenland, the first flight from London to Manchester, and the surveys of the Moon that ultimately facilitated the first landing.
These inspirational accounts are drawn from diaries, letters, memoirs, and travelogues: all illustrated with fascinating, beautiful maps.
A new, fully updated edition of this bestselling atlas of the world. Great value and contains all the world maps you need in a budget atlas, for family, study and business use.
Explore our planet;
Mapping updates include:
From the New York Times bestselling author of A History of the World in 12 Maps, this is the revelatory history of the four cardinal directions that have oriented and defined our place on the globe for millennia
North, south, east, and west: almost all societies use these four cardinal directions to orientate themselves and to understand who they are by projecting where they are. For millennia, these four directions have been foundational to our travel, navigation, and exploration, and are central to the imaginative, moral, and political geography of virtually every culture in the world. Yet they are far more subjective--and sometimes contradictory--than we might realize.
Four Points of the Compass leads us on a journey of directional discovery. Societies have understood and defined directions in very different ways based on their locations in time and space. Historian Jerry Brotton reveals why Hebrew culture privileges east; why Renaissance Europeans began drawing north at the top of their maps; why early Islam revered the south; why the Aztecs used five color-coded cardinal directions; and why no societies, primitive or modern, have ever orientated themselves westwards. In doing so, politically-loaded but widely used terms such as the "Middle East," the "Global South," the "West Indies," the "Orient," and even the "western world" take on new meanings. Who decided on these terms and what do they mean for geopolitics? How have directions like "east" and "west" taken on the status of cultural identities--or more accurately stereotypes?
Yet today, because of GPS capability, cardinal points are less relevant. Online, we place ourselves at the center of the map as little blue dots moving across geospatial apps; we have become the most important compass point, though in the process we've disconnected ourselves from the natural world. Imagining what future changes technology may impose, Jerry Brotton skillfully reminds us how crucial the four cardinal directions have been to everyone who has ever walked our planet. For anyone interested in history, geography, or surprising new ways to think about the world at large, Four Points of the Compass will be a stimulating experience.
"Beautifully conceived and skillfully executed . . . encourages the reader to linger and explore." -The Wall Street Journal
"Peter Bellerby's tale of learning how to fashion worlds-a journey through history, science, craft, and passion-spun me on my axis." -Dava Sobel, New York Times bestselling author of Longitude