New Found Lands: Maps in the History of Exploration

Patterns of growth, power, and conquest, writes cartographic historian Whitfield, can be discerned in changing maps of the world, from that of the medieval Islamic geographer al-Idrisi to the latest Landsat images from NASA. In this scholarly, heavily illustrated survey, Whitfield traces this changing map of the globe from its origins in the ancient Near East to the present. He gives particular attention to fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe, when several nations, motivated by reasons of economy and ideology, vied to complete that map with explorations in East Asia and the Americas. --Gregory McNamee