Rhumb lines and map wars
Editorial THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
Festland Spanien
- Verlag THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
- ISBN13 9780226534312
- ISBN10 0226534316
- Gegenstandsart Buch
- Buchseiten 242
- Jahr der Ausgabe 2004
- Sprache Englisch
- Bindung Stoffeinband
Abschnitte
Atlas Und KartenRhumb lines and map wars
Editorial THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
Festland Spanien
Buch Details
In Rhumb Lines and Map Wars, Mark Monmonier offers an illustrated account of the controversies surrounding Flemish cartographer Gerard Mercator's legacy. He takes us back to 1569, when Mercator announced a clever method of portraying the earth on a flat surface, creating the first projection to take into account the earth's roundness. As Monmonier shows, mariners benefited most from Mercator's projection, which allowed for easy navigation of the high seas with rhumb lines - clear-cut routes with a constant compass bearing - for true direction. But the projection's popularity among nineteenth-century sailors led to its overuse - often in inappropriate, non-navigational ways - for wall maps, world atlases, and geopolitical propaganda.