Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Mercator: The Man Who Mapped the Planet by Nicholas Crane ISBN: 0-8050-6624-1 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company Pub. Date: 02 January, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Unfair to Brazil
Comment: The man who figured out how to make maps of the globe flat and made us think Brazil was smaller than Greenland.
A problem with reviewing a history book for a non-professional is that we can't be sure how accurate it is and we have to leave that kind of review to the historians. I enjoyed it but it is a long densely packed 320 pages. At that length I think he could have given us a little more technology and more lucid explanation of the mathematical problem involved. I would have liked more detail of how the globes were made. Since some of them survive this should be feasible. He describes some of Mercator's predecessors and might have explained more about Ptolemy's maps. But I quibble; it's a massive achievement, lucid and enjoyable.
Rating: 5
Summary: Mercator: a first class story
Comment: Mercator, by Nicholas Crane, is a first class story about Mercator, his work and the troubled times. Mercator's methods of mapmaking were major breakthroughs in layout but it is hard to understand why that was the case, considering that we have maps everywhere today, even on demand in our cars. But Crane carefully lays out the background of discovery and politics and printing and art work that shows you why Mercator's work was so breathtakingly advanced at the time. A truly fine read.
Rating: 4
Summary: Excellant Intellectual Tale
Comment: Just look at a globe or a map. To the modern man, it all seems so final. Everything is mapped out rather specifically, with all kinds of scientifically and mathematically refined numbers and measurements ordering the physical world. Just a set of numbers can identify any place on Earth now with almost perfect accuracy. After reading Mercator, you realize what a different world we live in compared to the world Gerardus Mercator inhabited around five centuries ago. To Mercator and his colleagues, who were considered the high point of scientific knowledge at the same, the world was a dark mystery that seemed limitless in its expanse. They had little to reference, save fanciful stories of explorers and the Old Testament. It was up to a group of unbelievably talented men to make the leap that mankind needed in order to fully understand the shape and scope of the world we live on.
Gerardus Mercator was by no means born into greatness. On the contrary, the Flemish born genius was of very humble origins. As Crane reminds us, humble at the time meant barely living. Every day was a struggle. Luckily, the bright young boy that would give so much to mankind had a fairly prosperous uncle who funded his education at the Church academy at Leuvren, Belgium. I considered this part of the book to be the best. Crane does a very good outline of the emerging world of western intellectualism that was taking hold in the Low Countries. The Church and its allies, at least in certain areas, were taking fairly enlightened stances, letting non-churchmen hold ecumenical exclusive positions. This resulted in a great flourishing of ideas, especially in the field of cartography and theoretical mathematics. At first, Mercator was more of a simple student, but he soon fell in love with math and its mystical promises. Rapidly, his genius would be fully engaged with the image of the world.
Unfortunately, that image was not agreed upon by some important people. Leaders did not like to see the representations of their own land reduced in any way. Nor did the Vatican like certain new features added that seemed to cast doubt on certain church doctrines. Mercator, like many other intellectuals of the era was caught up in the net of the Inquisition. However, he lived through that experience, and we are all the better for it. Crane goes very indepth into Mercators methods and mindset. The reader gets a full understanding of the calculations and stakes involved. I felt Crane gets bogged down sometimes in minutiae, that does not really help the story, but the book is very good overall. It just brings a sense of awe to the reader that the western world could produce men such as Mercator, it truly is a credit to our civilization and the ideals we all aspire to.
 |
Title: Measuring America: How the United States Was Shaped by the Greatest Land Sale in History by Andro Linklater ISBN: 0452284597 Publisher: Plume Books Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
 |
Title: The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error That Transformed the World by Ken Alder ISBN: 0743216768 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
 |
Title: The Mapmakers by John Noble Wilford ISBN: 0375409297 Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Pub. Date: 05 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
 |
Title: The Story of Maps by Lloyd Arnold Brown ISBN: 0486238733 Publisher: Dover Publications Pub. Date: 01 June, 1979 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
 |
Title: A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable by John Steele Gordon ISBN: 0060524464 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
