The Map That Changed The World
Hidden behind velvet curtains above a stairway in a house in London's Piccadilly is an enormous and beautiful hand-coloured map - the first geological map of anywhere in the world. Its maker was a farmer's son named William Smith. Born in 1769 his life was beset by troubles. This title tells his...
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Hidden behind velvet curtains above a stairway in a house in London's Piccadilly is an enormous and beautiful hand-coloured map - the first geological map of anywhere in the world. Its maker was a farmer's son named William Smith. Born in 1769 his life was beset by troubles. This title tells his story.
show less
Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780140280395 (0140280391)
Publish date: July 4th 2002
Publisher: Penguin
Pages no: 338
Edition language: English
Category:
Non Fiction,
Biography,
History,
European Literature,
British Literature,
Science,
Popular Science,
Geology,
Geography,
History Of Science,
Cartography,
Maps
MAP is 3/5 because half of it is geology and most people are not fascinated by geology. so, it's a weaker Winchester book although apparently the crowd disagrees and rates it 3rd in overall popularity. in fact, according to GR, it's half as popular as Krakatoa and twice or even four times the Winche...
Not as good as The Professor and the Madman, IMHO - some portions seemed oddly disjointed with regard to chronology, and some information was duplicated in later sections in almost the same words. An interesting story for the most part, about another one of those "hidden heroes" of the Age of Enlig...
A great book with 2 interesting stories, how William Smith almost single handed figured out the geology of England and also a more important and damning one about how class fixations in mid 19th century England conspired against talented and gifted individuals. Hmmm not much has changed.
I adore Simon, and enjoy his books, but he's so much more engaging live than he is on paper. This book reminded me of several people's characterization of male British dating habits; they tend to hang around quite a bit without making a move before even attempting to mention that they'd be happy to...
While I liked The Map that Changed the World well enough, it was a slow read (about 25 pages a night). I preferred Winchester's OED-related books, perhaps because I'm actually interested in the picky details of dictionary development, and because with a focus on words his Byzantine sentences don't s...
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