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A History of the World in Twelve Maps
A History of the World in Twelve Maps
Oct 16, 2024 4:54 PM

Author:Jerry Brotton

A History of the World in Twelve Maps

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 reading it, we can better understand the worlds that produced it.

Although the way we map our surroundings is changing, Brotton argues that maps today are no more definitive or objective than they have ever been, but that they continue to define, shape and recreate the world. Readers of this book will never look at a map in quite the same way again.

Reviews

[A] fascinating and panoramic new history of the cartographer's art... Brotton's idea of tracing within maps the patterns of human thought is a wonderful one

—— Tom Holland , Guardian

As this mesmerising and beautifully illustrated book demonstrates, maps have, since ancient times, carried vast symbolic weight ... rich and endlessly absorbing history

—— Sinclair McKay , Daily Telegraph

An elegant, powerfully argued variation on the theme of knowledge as power and ignorance as powerlessness

—— David Horspool , Guardian

Rich and adventurous

—— John Carey , Sunday Times

An achievement of evocation....a fascinating and thought-provoking book

—— Anthony Sattin , Literary Review

Brotton is acutely sensitive to the social, political and religious contexts which unravel why maps were made, for whom and with what axes to grind

—— Robert Mayhew , History Today

A highly rewarding study

—— Simon Garfield , Mail on Sunday

Engrossing reading

—— Carl Wilkinson , Financial Times

The intellectual background to these images is conveyed with beguiling erudition ... There is nothing more subversive than a map

—— Andrew Linklater , Spectator

It is a wonderful history, which will delight anyone with an interest in history and geography

—— David Wooton , TLS

A glorious read!

—— Mojomums

A splendid pontine read.

—— Londonist

A delightful and informative romp.

—— Richard Boon , N16

As a chronicle of social and architectural history, this is an informative and fun read

—— Bookbag

Tindall transforms bricks and mortar into fascinating social history

—— Christopher Hirst , Independent

The interest here lies in the accurate and plausible portrait of a whole society, from top to bottom… The details are fascinating

—— Guardian

The avowed aim of this fascinating history of neighbours is to explore the delicate balance between people’s determination to protect their privacy and their simultaneous wish to cultivate contact with those who live close by

—— Good Book Guide

A very personal encounter with Roman Britain… Invites us to see our landscape and history as the Romans first imagined and wrote about them – strange and exotic islands, perched on the edge of the known world.

—— UK Regional Press

[Higgins] is as sharp and sensitive an observer of the latest version of Britannia as she is of the earliest one… Each chapter is not just a regional itinerary but also a brilliantly constructed and often exhilaratingly poetic treatment of wider themes.

—— Emily Gowers , Times Literary Supplement

Records [Higgins’] own travels around the island in search of Roman traces. She includes plenty of anecdotes about the continuing fascination with the Roman past and its penetration of the present.

—— Oldie

Higgins produced another remarkable British travelogue… that was at once thoughtful, learned, witty and superbly written.

—— William Dalrymple , Observer

Filled with passion and personal interest… Higgins walks us around the landscape of this country as it would have been 2,000 years ago, and in doing so she ably captures the spirit of Britain now, Britain then and Britain in between.

—— Dan Jones , Telegraph

Whether at Hadrian’s Wall or in a car park in the City, she [Higgins] shows how Roman traces are woven through British life.

—— Financial Times

A fascinating look at how we have viewed Rome's presence in these islands and what a debt we still owe to Roman achievements.

—— Good Book Guide

Part history, part travelogue, [Higgins] also brings to life the eccentric archaeologists who have tried to recapture that lost civilisation.

—— Robbie Millen , The Times

A fresh and readable account

—— Fachtna Kelly , Sunday Business Post

Under Another Sky is not only a work of personal history, it is more personal than that... It is conversational, anecdotal, in a way that makes it easy for [Higgins] to slip in quite a lot of information

—— Nicholas Lezard , Guardian

A delightful, effortlessly engaging handbook to the half-lost, half-glimpsed world of Roman Britain... The result is an utterly original history, lyrically alive to the haunting presence of the past and our strange and familiar ancestors

—— Christopher Hart , Sunday Times

The beauty of this book is not just in the elegant prose and in the precision with which [Higgins] skewers her myths. It is in the sympathy she shows for the myth-makers.

—— Peter Stothard , The Times

Evocative...a keen-eyed tour of Britain.

—— Christopher Hirst , Independent

Packed with fascinating and thought-provoking insights.

—— Herald

A captivating travelogue.

—— Helena Gumley-Mason , Lady

A delightfully heady and beautifully written potpourri of a book.

—— BBC History Magazine

A fascinating look at the debt we owe to Roman achievements

—— Good Book Guide

One of those fantastical novels that tells us more about the realities of being human than most realist novels do…the most thrilling and moving experience fiction has to offer this year.

—— TIME (Top 10 Fiction Books of Year)

Kate Atkinson's audacious novel plays a virtuoso game with the nature of fiction...her best book to date and a worthy winner of a Costa Prize.

—— Daily Telegraph
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