Mercator: The Man who Mapped the Planet
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Review
Alex Hippisley Cox has got some excellent publicity lined up for this, with a big interview with Nick by Alan Franks whch ran in the WEEKEND TIMES on 14 June. Nick's two events for Stanfords, one in their shop in Manchester on 5 June and one in their Bristol shop on 12 June went extremely well. Nick has done interviews on BBC RADIO ESSEX on Friday 6th June, BBC WILTSHIRE SOUND on Monday 9th June, BBC RADIO LEEDS on 5 June, BBC RADIO OXFORD on 12 June, BBC LATE SHOW in the Midlands (across 7 BBC local radio stations) on 6 June, BBC RADIO GUERNSEY on 19 June and BBC RADIO DEVEN on 26 June. The reviews we've received so far have been excellent: "A beautifully detailed picture of the dangerous but intellectually exciting times in which his subject lived"SUNDAY TELEGRAPH "Book of the Week. Nicholas Crane's new book Mercator: The Man Who Mapped the Planet tells how Gerard Mercator, born in 1512 and son of a cobbler,became a founding father of modern geography."DAILY EXPRESS "A portrait not only of a remarkable man but also of the 16th-century world of scholarship and cartography." SUNDAY TIMES 'A colourful biography which tells the story of a cobbler's son, orphaned in his teens, who escaped the Inquisition and began
Book Description
From the bestselling author of CLEAR WATERS RISING and TWO DEGREES WEST, a biography of the genius who mapped the world and for ever changed the face of the planet.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have to confess that I'm only about a third of the way through this book but it is a struggle. Crane has managed to take what should have been an exciting story and bog it down so much that there is no sense of intellectual excitement or even the personality or mind of such an amazing man as Mercator. I am keeping going because I want to understand the achievemtnts of the man, but that is despite of the book rather than through the book - a sad indictment of the author, I'm afraid. This is a tale crying out to be well-told, but Crane sadly isn't the author to do it.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Fascinated by the romance of early mapping, intrigued to know more about Mercator, and encouraged by very positive reviews, I looked forward keenly to reading this biography. I have to confess to finding it very heavy going. Crane has laboured mightily in wondrously obscure sources, but for me he has failed to handle his material effectively; at times the 'scene-setting' is so pedantically and referentially detailed that my interest in the historic context was wholly exhausted, and I urgently wanted him to get on with the biography. At other points - as in his involvement with his first globe - Mercator's career seems to advance by quantum leaps without an adequate account of how and why that suddenly became possible.
But the particular failing for me is that the book seems to fall between two stools. It is hardly in the current genre of popular historic science books, which are usually racey, stimulating, and selective in their treatment: Crane's strangely disengaged manner of writing manages to dissipate almost entirely the excitement and romance in this great work of mapping the globe at a time of extraordinary opening-up of European consciousness of the world. On the other hand it lacks the analytical rigour and explication of a full-blown scientific biography.
I did read through all the way to the end, but more from a dogged sense of wanting to learn what Crane could tell me rather than from any enjoyment or sense of close engagement. I suspect that there may already be a lot of one-third-read copies of this book on shelves around the country.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In the sixteenth century in the turbulent low countries of northern Europe - what is now Benelux and Holland - men of talent or born to rich, noble or royal families played for high stakes. Men from humble beginnings such as Gerard Kremer, son of a migrant cobbler, either faced poverty and periodic famines or, if intelligent and fortunate enough to gain an education, raised themselves to a position where they too played for high stakes.
The high stakes derived from the ferocious battle between the Catholic Church and the Lutherans and Calvanists. Associate with the wrong people or hold views that did not conform exactly with the official, Catholic interpretation of the bible and you faced torture, the inquisition and execution.
But for a highly intelligent, original and diligent map maker, Gerard Kramer, who adopted the name Mercator, in order to earn a living he had to earn commissions and therefore work for patrons who might not turn out to be on the right side.
At this time the low countries were the centre of battles and wars between the Spanish and the Hapsburgs with the Catholic Church struggling to combat the spread of low church religion led by Martin Luther.
But it was also a time of intense exploration and the increasing sophistication of map making, triangulation and accurate print making through the use of copper engraving.
The map makers were a different breed to the sailors who were opening up new areas of the world from Vespucci in 1505 sailing south from Italy to Magellan's round the world trip. The map makers, including the monk Franciscus Monachus who introduced Mercator to the principles of geography, worked from a whole variety of printed sources - including Ptolemy - as well as becoming skilled surveyors in their own right.
Despite four months in prison facing torture and execution by the Catholic Church because his original thought and making of globes and maps challenged strict biblical interpretation, Mercator was not deterred from producing a prodigious output of maps of Europe, the world and the planets. He solved the dimensional riddle that had vexed mapmakers for so long in how to convert the three dimensional globe into two-dimensional maps. His solution - Mercator's Projection - entirely revolutionised our world view.
Nicholas Crane's book is not easy reading. He is immensely erudite and fills pages with reference to a whole host of people - royalty, clerics, geographers, printers - and events that reveal immense research and wide, wide knowledge but confuse the reader and bury the main thread. One admires the incredible research but looks for greater editing.
By three quarters of the way through the book loses its impetus. Mercator brings to fruit an enormous amount of map production living through to the ripe old age of 77. But by then the repetition of the book loses appeal.
An original account of an age of extraordinary intellectual and scientific expansion by men who were prepared to live and die for their views. But an account that could do with much editing.
The high stakes derived from the ferocious battle between the Catholic Church and the Lutherans and Calvanists. Associate with the wrong people or hold views that did not conform exactly with the official, Catholic interpretation of the bible and you faced torture, the inquisition and execution.
But for a highly intelligent, original and diligent map maker, Gerard Kramer, who adopted the name Mercator, in order to earn a living he had to earn commissions and therefore work for patrons who might not turn out to be on the right side.
At this time the low countries were the centre of battles and wars between the Spanish and the Hapsburgs with the Catholic Church struggling to combat the spread of low church religion led by Martin Luther.
But it was also a time of intense exploration and the increasing sophistication of map making, triangulation and accurate print making through the use of copper engraving.
The map makers were a different breed to the sailors who were opening up new areas of the world from Vespucci in 1505 sailing south from Italy to Magellan's round the world trip. The map makers, including the monk Franciscus Monachus who introduced Mercator to the principles of geography, worked from a whole variety of printed sources - including Ptolemy - as well as becoming skilled surveyors in their own right.
Despite four months in prison facing torture and execution by the Catholic Church because his original thought and making of globes and maps challenged strict biblical interpretation, Mercator was not deterred from producing a prodigious output of maps of Europe, the world and the planets. He solved the dimensional riddle that had vexed mapmakers for so long in how to convert the three dimensional globe into two-dimensional maps. His solution - Mercator's Projection - entirely revolutionised our world view.
Nicholas Crane's book is not easy reading. He is immensely erudite and fills pages with reference to a whole host of people - royalty, clerics, geographers, printers - and events that reveal immense research and wide, wide knowledge but confuse the reader and bury the main thread. One admires the incredible research but looks for greater editing.
By three quarters of the way through the book loses its impetus. Mercator brings to fruit an enormous amount of map production living through to the ripe old age of 77. But by then the repetition of the book loses appeal.
An original account of an age of extraordinary intellectual and scientific expansion by men who were prepared to live and die for their views. But an account that could do with much editing.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
mapping
This is the story of Gerard Mercator(1512-1594),son of a cobbler, who attended the famous Louvain university and then became the worlds greatest cartographer in history. Read more
Published 8 months ago by G. I. Forbes
An incredible book about an incredible man
This has been one of the most enjoyable biographies that I have read in a long time. Nicholas Crane gets the formula right here in a well written and wonderfully researched... Read more
Published on 8 Oct 2003 by EFMOL
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