Description
Traces the history of mapmaking while showing how geographical perspectives have influenced and reflected social, political, religious, and scientific thought from ancient to modern times.
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How do we see the world? Some ancients believed it rode on the back of a turtle. The Greeks viewed it as a sphere and measured it with astonishing accuracy. Today, scientists monitor it from space, detecting complex climate patterns that threaten our survival. Narrated by Patrick Stewart, The Shape of the World traces the history of mapmaking from crude clay tablets to sophisticated electronic screens. Internationally respected historians, NASA scientists and other experts explain how humans rely on imagination, observation and mathematics to create pictures that make sense of our world. Throughout history, mapmakers have provoked assassinations, won or lost wars, and opened the ways to wealth and power. Today, they help answer the crises of epidemics and climate change.
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