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Review
“Marvelously imaginative, exhaustively researched. . . . Guiding the reader Virgil-like through the Age of Discovery, Lester introduces a chronologically and conceptually vast array of Great Men (Columbus, Vespucci, Polo, Copernicus, et al.), competing theories, monastic sages, forgotten poets, opportunistic merchants, unfortunate slaves, and more. That he relates it all so cleanly and cogently—via elegant prose, relaxed erudition, measured pacing, and purposeful architecture—is a feat. That he proffers plentiful visual delights, including detailed views of the legendary document, is a gift. This map, Lester writes, ‘draws you in, reveals itself in stages, and doesn’t let go.’ Nor does this splendid volume.” —The Atlantic“An intellectual detective story. By using the [Waldseemüller] map as a lens through which to view a nexus of myth, imagination, technology, stupidity, and imperial ambition, Lester has penned a provocative, disarming testament to human ambition and ingenuity.” —The Boston GlobeLester pulls on the threads of Waldseemüller's map and finds an extraordinary braid of influences. [He] builds a cumulative tale of rich, diverse influences that he juggles with gathering speed and showmanship until the whir of detail coalesces into an inspired, imaginative piece of mapmaking.”—San Francisco Chronicle“Fascinating. Without Toby Lester's fine book, the Waldseemüller Map might remain an interesting historical footnote. Instead, one now understands the creation of the map as a world-changing moment, "a birth certificate for the world that came into being in 1492 -- and a death warrant for the one that was there before.’"—Minneapolis Star-Tribune“Lester captures the passion, curiosity and, at times, the hubris behind the European explorations. His real interest lies in the evolution of Europeans' perception of the world, as reflected by their maps, an approach that works splendidly. To mid-millennial Europeans, there was nothing over the western sea but mystery and legends about islands, monsters and mythical beings. It took courage to sail off into that unknown, and Lester's book offers a clear survey of how people came to understand the world in which they lived.” —The Washington Post“Maps – intricate, absurd, fantastical, ridiculous – fill this beautiful book, reinforcing Lester’s thesis that they tell us as much about their makers as our surroundings. The heretofore unknown fourth part of the world was an enormous, unspoiled continent whose natural resources could be exploited and whose natives could be converted, sold into slavery, or exterminated. Like any train wreck, the controversies of this historical moment fascinate.” —The Christian Science Monitor“With the excitement and exhilaration of an explorer, Atlantic contributor Lester sets off on his own journey of discovery across the seas of cartography and history. . . . Lester traces the map’s journey to America over the next century in a majestic tribute to a historic work.” —(Starred)Publishers Weekly“An engrossing adventure for both general and informed lay readers. Similar to K.A. Seaver’s Maps, Myths, and Men: The Story of the Vinland Map, this is highly recommended for anyone with an interest in cartography, the Age of Exploration, or European intellectual history.” —Library Journal“A swift, sweeping primer on the Age of Discovery and the legacy of mapmaking. Lester begins with the amazing story of an obscure German cartographer, Martin Waldseemuller. . . . As the Age of Discovery progressed, with the likes of Columbus, Cabot, Vespucci and the Portuguese navigators testing new margins, the race of the scientists and cartographers to keep up-separating self-promotion from fact-becomes a fascinating saga, ably captured in Lester's hands.”—Kirkus Reviews"In this sumptuous, lavishly illustrated history of map-making and the visions of the world it incarnated, Toby Lester presents an epic tale of mariners and explorers, monks and merchants, popes and kings from Ptolemy's first-century Guide to Drawing a World Map to the centerpiece of this book, Martin Waldseemuller's 1507 map on which the word "America" first appears. A fascinating, tortuously dogged (on the part of scribes and friars), meticulously detailed tale of how various maps came to be amid the humanist stirrings of Florence, the early Portuguese explorations of Africa. Lester's account sparkles with wit and tidbits."--The Providence Journal
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About the Author
Toby Lester is the author of The Fourth Part of the World (2009) and a contributing editor to The Atlantic. A former Peace Corps volunteer and United Nations observer, he lives in the Boston area with his wife and three daughters. His work has also appeared on the radio program This American Life.
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Product details
Paperback: 496 pages
Publisher: Free Press; 1 edition (July 6, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1416535349
ISBN-13: 978-1416535348
Product Dimensions:
5.5 x 1.2 x 8.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.6 out of 5 stars
67 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#202,562 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
As an avid antique map collector for the past 15 years, I was aware of this text through my obscure cartographic circles. But this book should not be considered an esoteric text on a singular document, the Waldseemuller map. Yes, the Waldseemuller map printed in 1507, but thought lost for 400 years and existing today in only a single copy found in 1901, is the centerpiece of this story. It is the map that gave the name America to the newly discovered lands, and is considered America's birth certificate.How the map came to be is an epic tale that spans centuries and civilizations. Toby Lester is a detective that leaves no trail unexamined, and has found as many avid antique map collectors have, that when you examine one map you find a trail of bread crumbs that must be consumed.This delightful tale of discovery and voyage, religion and humanism, is tremendously delightful. The reader will learn what many cartophiles already know. To paraphrase the History of Cartography Project: A map is a metaphor for science and knowledge, for trade and commerce, for colonial and religious expansion. All those stories and more are found in a map, and all those stories are told well by Toby Lester in "The Fourth Part of the World."
As some of the other reviewers have noted, this is much more than the tale of how a pathbreaking map of the world got drawn, published and circulated.It does tell that fascinating bit very well,however. But for me the book provided a portal into the opening decades of the discovery of the transatlantic world and how the ancient lore from Herodotus to Ptolemy got transformed, yet how some old myths endured.I have always been fascinated with the "imaginary voyage" vogue. If you've ever read and enjoyed, as I have, Babcock's classic "Legendary Islands of the Atlantic" or Johnson's equally fascinating "PHantom Islands of the Atlantic" then this book will be your cup of tea. It describes the intersection of navigational and cartographical science with enduring myths of creation and cosmology.I am reading the book for the second time, and still find overlooked nuggets of revelation.If you only read one book on the Age of Exploration and Discovery, this should be it. It is a virtual encyclopedia of the topic, but reads like a novel.
This book, an historical adventure story, is about a 1507 map that had been lost for centuries, and about how America got its name, but more importantly it is about human progress and the unending quest to discover who we are, how we got here, and where we fit into the grand scheme of things. We learn how the stories of Prester John, Genghis Khan, Copernicus, Marco Polo, the Medici, Ptolemy, Columbus, Vespucci, and many more have combined to advance mankinds knowledge and progress.This book gives the reader great insight into the minds of educated people during the middle ages and the Renaissance. We learn of their fears, ignorance, superstitions, hopes, and ambitions. We learn of mankinds slow but steady progress through the centuries in learning about ourselves, our environment and our limitations.This is a gem of a book and the impressive product of an enormous amount of research. If you enjoy history and adventure you will enjoy this book.Highly recommended.
The Fourth Part of the World is a great book about map history and perspectives through the ages; nothing what maps look like today. The first time was listening to the CD, but wanted to get into it in more detail without distraction and got the hardcopy; excellent.
This is a very interesting book. It is really detailed and sometimes a bit too much so for the casual reader. It begins with how a particular map came into existence, but then that particular map does not get discussed until well past the half-way mark. However, it's got a lot of information on western geographic development. I was disappointed that there was no mention of the great Chinese admiral of the Ming dynasty, Zheng He, who was sailing great distances well before Columbus.
Along the same lines as Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, in terms of being an "idea driven, non-fiction" book, as the WSJ review quote says on the front cover. As a lover of non-fiction myself, I found this book enlightening from cover to cover. It filled in a lot of blanks for me about the middle ages and the weird things, like headless persons, people used to believe in.Unfortunately, the book doesn't resolve the question of how Waldseemuller's seminal 1507 map showed the Pacific, and the South American Pacific coast, years before Balboa and Magellan actually (allegedly) saw it for the first time for Europeans (though ideas are proposed -- it's a question that could be ultimately unanswerable).For me, given that Waldseemuller's South American west coast is represented by two straight lines (a physical improbability) it seems likely that it was a good guess, and Lester's book does suggest such a reason as a possibility. In Waldseemuller's second map, made a few years later, he recanted on South America's Pacific coast, and drew the continent as ending against the edge of the map, much more like Ptolemy's original map, for reasons unknown.But what the Waldseemuller map really represents, and where the Guns, Germs and Steel book is lacking, is the tremendous intellectual achievement that writing; mass (ostensibly religious) conferences inspired by writing; and the printing press gave to the Europeans. Christopher Columbus was one of the first people to benefit from early, printed books. By the 1490's the pressure to cross the Atlantic from Europe to the west must have been palpable and inevitable, despite this bold and often mysterious character called Christopher Columbus; and despite Amerigo Vespucci.
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