Mercator
eBook - ePub

Mercator

The Man Who Mapped the Planet

  1. 377 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Mercator

The Man Who Mapped the Planet

About this book

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.

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Yes, you can access Mercator by Nicholas Crane in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Technology & Engineering & Social Science Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Notice
  4. Contents
  5. Dedication
  6. List of Illustrations
  7. A Personal Note to the Reader
  8. 1. A Little Town Called Gangelt
  9. 2. Promised Lands
  10. 3. To the Water Margin
  11. 4. The Castle
  12. 5. Triangulation
  13. 6. The Mathematical Jewel and Other Suitable Tools
  14. 7. Neither Known Nor Explored
  15. 8. Celestial Maidens
  16. 9. Terrae Sanctae
  17. 10. Naming America
  18. 11. The Fall of Ghent
  19. 12. Latin Letters
  20. 13. A More Complete Globe
  21. 14. Enemy at the Ramparts
  22. 15. The Most Unjust Persecution
  23. 16. The Slight Youth from the North
  24. 17. Somewhere Worthy of the Muses
  25. 18. Frankfurt Fair
  26. 19. Spies and Cardinals
  27. 20. René’s Domain
  28. 21. Hunters in the Snow
  29. 22. A Study of the Whole Universe
  30. 23. Time …
  31. 24. … and Place
  32. 25. ‘liketh, loveth, getteth and useth’
  33. 26. Ptolemy Corrected
  34. 27. Adorn your Britannia!
  35. 28. The New Geography
  36. 29. Apocalypse
  37. 30. Atlas
  38. 31. Creation
  39. Epilogue
  40. Notes
  41. Chronology of Mercator’s Principal Works
  42. Select Bibliography
  43. Index
  44. Also by Nicholas Crane
  45. Copyright