Mercator: The Man Who Mapped the Planet (edit title)

Shelfari edited the description of Mercator: The Man Who Mapped the Planet Sunday, August 2 2009.

• “Crane’s book is quite probably destined to become the standard text.”—Simon Winchester, The New York Times Gerhard Mercator lived in an era of formidable intellectual and scientific advances. At the center of the exploratory vortex were the cartographers who were painstakingly piecing together the evidence to create ever more accurate pictures of the planet. Mercator was the greatest of all of them. His inspiration—the map—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? His resulting projection revolutionized navigation and has become the most common worldview. For the first time, people were able to see the world on paper and their place in it. Nicholas Crane, a geographer himself, has combined a keen eye for historical detail with a gift for vivid storytelling to produce this masterly and highly acclaimed biography of the man who mapped the planet.

Shelfari edited the contributors of Mercator: The Man Who Mapped the Planet Thursday, July 23 2009.

• Added a contributor: Nicholas Crane: (Primary Author)

Shelfari edited the first sentence of Mercator: The Man Who Mapped the Planet Friday, July 17 2009.

• From the blank plateau, the travellers passed through an arched gateway into an interior world seething with humans and animals.