A World of Innovation
Title | A World of Innovation PDF eBook |
Author | Gerhard Holzer |
Publisher | Cambridge Scholars Publishing |
Total Pages | 280 |
Release | 2015-02-27 |
Genre | Technology & Engineering |
ISBN | 1443875708 |
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.
Rhumb Lines and Map Wars
Title | Rhumb Lines and Map Wars PDF eBook |
Author | Mark Monmonier |
Publisher | University of Chicago Press |
Total Pages | 257 |
Release | 2010-11-15 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 0226534324 |
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.
Mercator
Title | Mercator PDF eBook |
Author | Nicholas Crane |
Publisher | Macmillan + ORM |
Total Pages | 500 |
Release | 2014-09-02 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 1466880139 |
An enthralling biography of the man who created the first real map of the world and changed civilization Born at the dawn of the age of discovery, Gerhard Mercator lived in an era of formidable intellectual and scientific advances. At the center of these developments were the cartographers who painstakingly pieced together the evidence to create ever more accurate pictures of the planet. Mercator was the greatest of all of them-a poor farm boy who attended one of Europe's top universities, was persecuted and imprisoned by the Inquisition, but survived to coin the term "atlas" and to produce the so-called projection for which he is known. Devoutly religious, yet gripped by Aristotelian science, Mercator struggled to reconcile the two, a conflict mirrored by the growing clash in Europe between humanism and the Church. Mercator solved the dimensional riddle that had vexed cosmographers for so long: How could the three-dimensional globe be converted into a two-dimensional map while retaining true compass bearings? The projection revolutionized navigation and has become the most common worldview. Nicholas Crane-a fellow geographer-has combined a keen eye for historical detail with a gift for vivid storytelling to produce a masterful biography of the man who mapped the planet.
Mercator
Title | Mercator PDF eBook |
Author | Nicholas Crane |
Publisher | Macmillan |
Total Pages | 377 |
Release | 2003-01-02 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 0805066241 |
Publisher Description
The Description and Use of ... Mercator's Chart. ... To which is Added the Description of a New Scale Whereby Distances ... May be Measured ... Also a Letter to Dr. Halley Concerning the Globular Chart
Title | The Description and Use of ... Mercator's Chart. ... To which is Added the Description of a New Scale Whereby Distances ... May be Measured ... Also a Letter to Dr. Halley Concerning the Globular Chart PDF eBook |
Author | Thomas HASELDEN |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 52 |
Release | 1722 |
Genre | |
ISBN |
A Pocket Companion for Seamen, wherein is contained plain and Mercator's Sailing by vulgar arithmetic, and tables ... To which is added the whole art of gunnery and guaging of vessels, etc
Title | A Pocket Companion for Seamen, wherein is contained plain and Mercator's Sailing by vulgar arithmetic, and tables ... To which is added the whole art of gunnery and guaging of vessels, etc PDF eBook |
Author | Thomas RATCLIFFE (Mariner.) |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 104 |
Release | 1684 |
Genre | |
ISBN |
An Accompaniment to Mitchell's map of the World, on Mercator's projection; containing an index to the various countries, etc. represented on the map; ... also, a general description of the five great divisions of the globe
Title | An Accompaniment to Mitchell's map of the World, on Mercator's projection; containing an index to the various countries, etc. represented on the map; ... also, a general description of the five great divisions of the globe PDF eBook |
Author | Samuel Augustus Mitchell (Jr.) |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 584 |
Release | 1838 |
Genre | |
ISBN |