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Title: The Mapmaker's Wife: A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon by Robert Whitaker ISBN: 0-7382-0808-6 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 13 April, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)
Rating: 5
Summary: Scientific Exploration in the Andes during the 18th Century
Comment: A century after Galileo had been forced to publicly recant his heliocentric model of the solar system, Western Europe was engaged in frenzy of global exploration and scientific investigation. Explorers urgently needed better maps and navigational systems. Scientists were competing to accurately determine the shape of the Earth. Add in a little political intrigue and you have the subject of The Mapmaker's Wife: a 1735 French mapmaking expedition to Peru that lasted a decade.
The European Enlightenment was an extraordinary time for all intellectuals. France was the center of scientific research: Spain concentrated on exploring - and occupying - the new world. When French scientists suggested a journey to the Andes to measure the lines of latitude and longitude there and settle the question of the shape of the Earth, King Louis XV saw a chance to get information on the closely guarded Spanish empire.
Robert Whitaker has won acclaim for his scientific journalism and he brings all his skills to The Mapmaker's Wife. The real story of 18th century mapmaking is more exciting than any fiction and the characters involved are full of life. As part of his research for the book, the author traveled to South America. Although he doesn't mention his own travels in the book, the detailed descriptions of what travelers encountered could only have been written by someone who knew the region.
The mapmaker's wife only appears towards the end of the book. Isobel Godin was a Peruvian who had married one of the younger members of the mapmaking expedition. After waiting twenty years for him to return, she set out east across the Amazon jungle to find him. Her journey became one of the great survivor stories of the century and nicely complements the experiences of the French mapmakers in their journey west.
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Title: Sun After Dark: Flights into the Foreign by Pico Iyer ISBN: 0375415068 Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Pub. Date: 01 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: The Darkest Jungle: The True Story of the Darien Expedition and America's Ill-Fated Race to Connect the Seas by Todd Balf ISBN: 0609609890 Publisher: Crown Publishers Pub. Date: 30 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival by Dean King ISBN: 0316835145 Publisher: Little, Brown Pub. Date: March, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 by Nathaniel Philbrick ISBN: 067003231X Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 10 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan by Ben MacIntyre ISBN: 0374201781 Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux Pub. Date: 01 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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