The Map That Changed the World
by Simon Winchester
List Price:
Our Price: $18.19
You Save: $7.81 (30%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $3.25 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Simon WinchesterEdition: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2001-08-01
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Viking
Book Reviews of The Map That Changed the World
Book Review: The Father of English Geology
Summary: 3 Stars
Simon Winchester has given me hours of enjoyment with his books, wrapping his subjects in a warm blanket of articulate enthusiasm. His writing pleases me. I picked up The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology (P.S.) with high expectations; geology, Winchester's own field of study at Oxford--surely he would serve up a feast? I didn't find it so when measured against his other work.
This is the story of William "Strata" Smith, born in Oxfordshire in 1769, at the start of the Industrial Revolution. Though his humble background did not permit a formal education, he was lucky enough to find employment and training with a surveyor. Early in England's canal-building era, Smith's work often took him underground where he was fascinated by the layers and fossils revealed to his eye in mines and excavations.
England has a fascinating geological history. It has been desert, mountain range, covered repeatedly by warm water and in recent history by glaciers; like the rest of the world's land masses, it has pinballed around the planet as super-continents formed, collided, and richoceted apart. Winchester hits his stride in the telling of this history.
Smith studied the layers and folds of the earth and the fossils found in each layer, until he felt confident that he could describe the underground elements of the entire country. His famous colored map--the one that changed the world--was published in 1815. Geology was just coming into its own as a science and the leaders in the field, men of education and comfortable circumstances, snubbed the working-class Smith and freely plagiarized his work. Not until late in his life was he accorded the recognition that he had earned, along with a pension to ease his last years.
Smith's personal life was apparently fraught with bad financial decisions and he spent many years barely evading the bailiffs and tip-staffs; in fact he had one stint in debtor's prison and was forced to sell his stellar fossil collection to the British Museum for a pittance, to pay some debts. His wife was of unsound mental health, her condition allegedly manifested by nymphomania. Smith's diaries and journals were expurgated either before or after his death but there should have been enough remaining to bring the man more fully to life; somehow we don't see him as clearly as we would like. This is one of the relative weaknesses of the book.
Overall, The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology (P.S.) is a little too loosely strung together to give the same enjoyment as the The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary, or the The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (P.S.). Even Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire has a more cohesive feel, though it's essentially a series of travel stories strung together by the common theme referred to in its title. The geology of England is a big story, but it may be that the life of William Smith could not carry the weight of Winchester's rousing style. If you love Winchester, or geology, there is plenty here for you, but it's not the first of his books I would recommend.
Linda Bulger, 2009
Summary of The Map That Changed the World
From the author of the bestselling The Professor and the Madman comes the fascinating story of William Smith, the orphaned son of an English country blacksmith, who became obsessed with creating the world's first geological map and ultimately became the father of modern geology.In 1793 William Smith, a canal digger, made a startling discovery that was to turn the fledgling science of the history of the earth -- and a central plank of established Christian religion -- on its head. He noticed that the rocks he was excavating were arranged in layers; more important, he could see quite clearly that the fossils found in one layer were very different from those found in another. And out of that realization came an epiphany: that by following the fossils, one could trace layers of rocks as they dipped and rose and fell -- clear across England and, indeed, clear across the world. Determined to publish his profoundly important discovery by creating a map that would display the hidden underside of England, he spent twenty years traveling the length and breadth of the kingdom by stagecoach and on foot, studying rock outcrops and fossils, piecing together the image of this unseen universe.In 1815 he published his epochal and remarkably beautiful hand-painted map, more than eight feet tall and six feet wide. But four years after its triumphant publication, and with his young wife going steadily mad to the point of nymphomania, Smith ended up in debtors' prison, a victim of plagiarism, swindled out of his recognition and his profits. He left London for the north of England and remained homeless for ten long years as he searched for work. It wasn't until 1831, when his employer, a sympathetic nobleman, brought him into contact with the Geological Society of London -- which had earlier denied him a fellowship -- that at last this quiet genius was showered with the honors long overdue him. He was summoned south to receive the society's highest award, and King William IV offered him a lifetime pension.The Map That Changed the World is, at its foundation, a very human tale of endurance and achievement, of one man's dedication in the face of ruin and homelessness. The world's coal and oil industry, its gold mining, its highway systems, and its railroad routes were all derived entirely from the creation of Smith's first map.; and with a keen eye and thoughtful detail, Simon Winchester unfolds the poignant sacrifice behind this world-changing discovery.Once upon a time there lived a man who discovered the secrets of the earth. He traveled far and wide, learning about the world below the surface. After years of toil, he created a great map of the underworld and expected to live happily ever after. But did he? Simon Winchester (The Professor and the Madman) tells the fossil-friendly fairy tale life of William Smith in The Map That Changed the World.
Born to humble parents, Smith was also a child of the Industrial Revolution (the year of his birth, 1769, also saw Josiah Wedgwood open his great factory, Etruria, Richard Arkwright create his first water-powered cotton-spinning frame, and James Watt receive the patent for the first condensing steam engine). While working as surveyor in a coal mine, Smith noticed the abrupt changes in the layers of rock as he was lowered into the depths. He came to understand that the different layers--in part as revealed by the fossils they contained--always appeared in the same order, no matter where they were found. He also realized that geology required a three-dimensional approach. Smith spent the next 20 some years traveling throughout Britain, observing the land, gathering data, and chattering away about his theories to those he met along the way, thus acquiring the nickname "Strata Smith." In 1815 he published his masterpiece: an 8.5- by 6-foot, hand-tinted map revealing "A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales."
Despite this triumph, Smith's road remained more rocky than smooth. Snubbed by the gentlemanly Geological Society, Smith complained that "the theory of geology is in the possession of one class of men, the practice in another." Indeed, some members of the society went further than mere ostracism--they stole Smith's work. These cartographic plagiarists produced their own map, remarkably similar to Smith's, in 1819. Meanwhile the chronically cash-strapped Smith had been forced to sell his prized fossil collection and was eventually consigned to debtor's prison.
In the end, the villains are foiled, our hero restored, and science triumphs. Winchester clearly relishes his happy ending, and his honey-tinged prose ("that most attractively lovable losterlike Paleozoic arthropod known as the trilobite") injects a lot of life into what seems, on the surface, a rather dry tale. Like Smith, however, Winchester delves into the strata beneath the surface and reveals a remarkable world. --Sunny Delaney
General Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Geology & history for gold speculators
Ore Deposits and Mantle Plumesby F. Pirajno
Springer; Springer; Published: 2001-02-28; Kindle Edition; eBooks
Best price: $135.20
Price in other shops:
Geochemistry of Hydrothermal Ore Deposits, 3rd EditionWiley; Published: 1997-06-09; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $216.20
Price in other shops:
Ages in Chaos: James Hutton and the Discovery of Deep Timeby Stephen Baxter
Forge Books; Published: 2006-08-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.00
Price in other shops:
Geology of the American Southwest: A Journey Through Two Billion Years of Plate-Tectonic Historyby W. Scott Baldridge
Cambridge University Press; Published: 2004-06-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $31.09
Price in other shops:
The Seashell on the Mountaintop: A Story of Science, Sainthood, and the Humble Genius Who Discovered a New History of the Earthby Alan Cutler
Published: 2003-04-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $20.99
Price in other shops:
Valuing Mining Companies: A Guide to the Assessment and Evaluation of Assets, Performance, and Prospectsby Charles Kernot
CRC; Published: 1999-06-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $167.96
Price in other shops:
The Geology of Ore Depositsby John M. Guilbert, Charles Frederick Park
Waveland Press, Inc.; Published: 2007-02-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $66.36
Price in other shops:
Introduction to Ore-Forming Processesby Laurence Robb
Blackwell Science Ltd.; Published: 2005; Paperback; Book
Best price: $51.50
Price in other shops:
Quantitative Trading and Money Management, Revised Editionby Fred Gehm
McGraw-Hill; Published: 1995-07-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $26.74
Price in other shops:
Winner Take Allby William R. Gallacher
McGraw-Hill Companies; Published: 1997-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $57.95
Similar Books and other products
Annals of the Former Worldby John McPhee
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Published: 2000-06-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.30
Price in other shops:
Korea: A Walk Through the Land of Miraclesby Simon Winchester
Harper Perennial; Published: 2005-05-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.67
Price in other shops:
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Timeby Dava Sobel
Walker & Company; Published: 2007-10-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.99
Price in other shops:
Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empireby Simon Winchester
Harper Perennial; Published: 2004-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.92
Price in other shops:
The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionaryby Simon Winchester
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2004-10-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.00
Price in other shops:
The River at the Center of the World, Revised: A Journey Up the Yangtze, and Back in Chinese Timeby Simon Winchester
Picador; Published: 2004-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.96
Price in other shops:
The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdomby Simon Winchester
Harper; Published: 2008-05-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.99
Price in other shops:
Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 (P.S.)by Simon Winchester
Harper Perennial; Published: 2005-07-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.99
Price in other shops:
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (P.S.)by Simon Winchester
Harper Perennial; Published: 2005-07-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops:
A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 (P.S.)by Simon Winchester
Harper Perennial; Published: 2006-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.34
Price in other shops: