Road maps; sailor’s charts;
quilts; songlines; gilded parchment
covered with jewel-like colors; computer
printouts – to guide us through
the strange, vast, beautiful, and mysterious
frontiers of the world of maps, Ross
presents the men and women who made
them.
Here are some of the unexpected stories
of history’s great mapmakers:
the fraud artists who deliberately distorted
maps for political gain, Captain Cook,
the slaves on the run who found their
way thanks to specially-pieced quilts,
the woman who mapped London’s
streets, princes, doctors, and warriors.
These are the people who helped us chart
our way in the world, under the sea,
and on to the stars.
With reproductions of some of the
most important maps in history, this
book, packed with information, is as
fascinating and suspenseful as a novel.
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