The World of Gerard Mercator

The World of Gerard Mercator PDF Author: Andrew Taylor
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780802713773
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Almost extinguished by the Spanish Inquisition, genius cartographer Mercator revolutionized the study of geography. His "projection" was so visionary that it is still used by NASA to map Mars today.

The World of Gerard Mercator

The World of Gerard Mercator PDF Author: Andrew Taylor
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780802713773
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Almost extinguished by the Spanish Inquisition, genius cartographer Mercator revolutionized the study of geography. His "projection" was so visionary that it is still used by NASA to map Mars today.

Rhumb Lines and Map Wars

Rhumb Lines and Map Wars PDF Author: Mark Monmonier
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226534324
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
In Rhumb Lines and Map Wars, Mark Monmonier offers an insightful, richly illustrated account of the controversies surrounding Flemish cartographer Gerard Mercator's legacy. He takes us back to 1569, when Mercator announced a clever method of portraying the earth on a flat surface, creating the first projection to take into account the earth's roundness. As Monmonier shows, mariners benefited most from Mercator's projection, which allowed for easy navigation of the high seas with rhumb lines—clear-cut routes with a constant compass bearing—for true direction. But the projection's popularity among nineteenth-century sailors led to its overuse—often in inappropriate, non-navigational ways—for wall maps, world atlases, and geopolitical propaganda. Because it distorts the proportionate size of countries, the Mercator map was criticized for inflating Europe and North America in a promotion of colonialism. In 1974, German historian Arno Peters proffered his own map, on which countries were ostensibly drawn in true proportion to one another. In the ensuing "map wars" of the 1970s and 1980s, these dueling projections vied for public support—with varying degrees of success. Widely acclaimed for his accessible, intelligent books on maps and mapping, Monmonier here examines the uses and limitations of one of cartography's most significant innovations. With informed skepticism, he offers insightful interpretations of why well-intentioned clerics and development advocates rallied around the Peters projection, which flagrantly distorted the shape of Third World nations; why journalists covering the controversy ignored alternative world maps and other key issues; and how a few postmodern writers defended the Peters worldview with a self-serving overstatement of the power of maps. Rhumb Lines and Map Wars is vintage Monmonier: historically rich, beautifully written, and fully engaged with the issues of our time.

The World of Gerard Mercator

The World of Gerard Mercator PDF Author: Andrew Taylor
Publisher: HarperPerennial
ISBN: 9780007100811
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Gerard Mercator created the most-used map of all time. Mercator's Projection is still the standard view of the world. This text examines the evolution of mapmaking from art to science that forms the backdrop to the story of Mercator.

Mercator

Mercator PDF Author: Nicholas Crane
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0805066241
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
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Mapping an Atlantic World, circa 1500

Mapping an Atlantic World, circa 1500 PDF Author: Alida C. Metcalf
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421438526
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
How did intricately detailed sixteenth-century maps reveal the start of the Atlantic World? Beginning around 1500, in the decades following Columbus's voyages, the Atlantic Ocean moved from the periphery to the center on European world maps. This brief but highly significant moment in early modern European history marks not only a paradigm shift in how the world was mapped but also the opening of what historians call the Atlantic World. But how did sixteenth-century chartmakers and mapmakers begin to conceptualize—and present to the public—an interconnected Atlantic World that was open and navigable, in comparison to the mysterious ocean that had blocked off the Western hemisphere before Columbus's exploration? In Mapping an Atlantic World, circa 1500, Alida C. Metcalf argues that the earliest surviving maps from this era, which depict trade, colonization, evangelism, and the movement of peoples, reveal powerful and persuasive arguments about the possibility of an interconnected Atlantic World. Blending scholarship from two fields, historical cartography and Atlantic history, Metcalf explains why Renaissance cosmographers first incorporated sailing charts into their maps and began to reject classical models for mapping the world. Combined with the new placement of the Atlantic, the visual imagery on Atlantic maps—which featured decorative compass roses, animals, landscapes, and native peoples—communicated the accessibility of distant places with valuable commodities. Even though individual maps became outdated quickly, Metcalf reveals, new mapmakers copied their imagery, which then repeated on map after map. Individual maps might fall out of date, be lost, discarded, or forgotten, but their geographic and visual design promoted a new way of seeing the world, with an interconnected Atlantic World at its center. Describing the negotiation that took place between a small cadre of explorers and a wider class of cartographers, chartmakers, cosmographers, and artists, Metcalf shows how exploration informed mapmaking and vice versa. Recognizing early modern cartographers as significant agents in the intellectual history of the Atlantic, Mapping an Atlantic World, circa 1500 includes around 50 beautiful and illuminating historical maps.

Barefoot Books World Atlas

Barefoot Books World Atlas PDF Author: Nick Crane
Publisher: Barefoot Ministries
ISBN: 9781846863325
Category : Children's atlases
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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Book Description
This atlas is packed with information about the way in which communities and cultures across the world have been shaped by their local environments and it looks at the ideas and initiatives which are shaping the future.

Gerardus Mercator

Gerardus Mercator PDF Author: Ann Heinrichs
Publisher: Capstone
ISBN: 9780756533120
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
A biography of the sixteenth-century cartographer Gerardus Mercator, who invented a method of projecting the curvature of the Earth's surface on to a flat sheet of paper.

Flattening the Earth

Flattening the Earth PDF Author: John P. Snyder
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226767477
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Cartographers have long grappled with the impossibility of portraying the earth in two dimensions. To solve this problem, mapmakers have created map projections. This work discusses and illustrates the known map projections from before 500BC to the present, with facts on their origins and use.

A History of the World in 12 Maps

A History of the World in 12 Maps PDF Author: Jerry Brotton
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101637994
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
A New York Times Bestseller “Maps allow the armchair traveler to roam the world, the diplomat to argue his points, the ruler to administer his country, the warrior to plan his campaigns and the propagandist to boost his cause… rich and beautiful.” – Wall Street Journal Throughout history, maps have been fundamental in shaping our view of the world, and our place in it. But far from being purely scientific objects, maps of the world are unavoidably ideological and subjective, intimately bound up with the systems of power and authority of particular times and places. Mapmakers do not simply represent the world, they construct it out of the ideas of their age. In this scintillating book, Jerry Brotton examines the significance of 12 maps - from the almost mystical representations of ancient history to the satellite-derived imagery of today. He vividly recreates the environments and circumstances in which each of the maps was made, showing how each conveys a highly individual view of the world. Brotton shows how each of his maps both influenced and reflected contemporary events and how, by considering it in all its nuances and omissions, we can better understand the world that produced it. Although the way we map our surroundings is more precise than ever before, Brotton argues that maps today are no more definitive or objective than they have ever been. Readers of this beautifully illustrated and masterfully argued book will never look at a map in quite the same way again. “A fascinating and panoramic new history of the cartographer’s art.” – The Guardian “The intellectual background to these images is conveyed with beguiling erudition…. There is nothing more subversive than a map.” – The Spectator “A mesmerizing and beautifully illustrated book.” —The Telegraph

A World of Innovation

A World of Innovation PDF Author: Gerhard Holzer
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443875708
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Gerhard Mercator (1512–1594) was the most important cartographer and globemaker of the 16th century. He is particularly remembered for his publication Atlas sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi et Fabricati Figura (1595), and for his specific cylindrical map projection (1569), which is still used widely today. This book brings together the latest research on Mercator with a view to his sources and his relationships with other scientific disciplines and cartographers of his time, as well as his role in the wider worlds of Renaissance cartography and Humanism.