World of Gerard Mercator: The Mapmaker Who Revolutionized Geography FROM THE PUBLISHER
"The story of discovery and mapmaking is one of pushing back shadows, and no one in the last two thousand years achieved as much as Gerard Mercator in extending the boundaries of the known world. His life spanned most of the turbulent, extraordinary sixteenth century, a time when war rolled across Europe and revolutions engulfed religion, science, and civilization. Almost extinguished by the Inquisition, Mercator survived to bring his genius to making maps, and his achievement was nothing less than to revolutionize the study of geography." "Appropriately for an era undergoing radical change, Mercator was full of contradiction himself, tied to knowledge and beliefs of the past, yet unafraid to forge a new path. He never traveled beyond northern Europe, yet he had the imagination to draw the entire world anew and to solve a problem that had baffled sailors and scientists for centuries: how a curved Earth could be faithfully rendered on a flat surface to allow for accurate navigation. His "projection" was so visionary that it is used by NASA to map Mars today." Andrew Taylor has captured Mercator amid the turmoil and opportunity of his times and the luminaries who inspired his talent - his teacher and business partner, Gemma Frisius; the English wizard John Dee; his benefactor, Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor; his cartographic collaborator, Abraham Ortelius. The World of Gerard Mercator is a biography of one of the men most responsible for the modern world.
SYNOPSIS
Everyone today has seen versions of it a million times, but British historian Taylor is not concerned with the maps Mercator (1512-94) made, but with the world he made them of. He narrates the life of the man who launched modern cartography, within the intellectual, cultural, and political context of his age. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Maps today strike us as fairly innocuous charts of the world. But 500 years ago, an era when political power and religious authority were in flux, maps were fraught with implications that made owning the "wrong" map a cause for execution. Into this world came Flemish mapmaker Gerard Mercator (1512-1594), whose new technique forged modern cartography as we know it. Mercator devised an ingenious compromise between accurately depicting the varying lengths of latitudinal circles between the poles and the equator and accurately depicting geographic details that is the basis for nearly all maps in use today. British historian Taylor (God's Fugitive) neatly surveys Mercator's invention along with the rest of his professional career, while delving into hardships caused by the Inquisition, which arrested him on suspicions of Lutheran heresy, and the bubonic plague, which touched his family. The background material on 16th-century exploration and European politics is effectively presented, helping readers to understand how Mercator was able to successfully navigate a web of political intrigues. Taylor also discusses modern attempts to "correct" various distortions in the comparative sizes of major land masses. This occasionally lively chronicle should appeal to a core audience of history and geography buffs. 40 b&w illus. and 7 maps. (Nov.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A biography of the only mapmaker nonspecialists are likely to have heard of. Mercator (1512-94) was born in Flanders as Gerard de Cremer, Latinizing his name, as did many learned men of his day. British historian Taylor (God's Fugitive, 1999) begins with a summary of the state of geography in the early 16th century, built, as it was, on such ancient authorities as Ptolemy but incorporating recent discoveries in the Americas and Asia. Mercator, he believes, was drawn to geography and cartography as disciplines that combined classical knowledge with the heady news being brought by returning adventurers to port cities all over Europe. At the same time, a good mapmaker could make a great deal of money by supplying the rich and powerful with accurate maps and globes. In Mercator's case, even at the apprentice stage of his career, his craftsmanship set him apart. By age 30, he was doing commissions for clients ranging from Spain's Charles V to the Turkish Sultan: maps of England, Lorraine, and Europe; atlases; and matched pairs of terrestrial and celestial globes. For all, he drew on the most current information he could gather, whether Copernicus's sky maps or documents from the recent English Arctic expeditions. His careful courtship of the powerful stood him in good stead even when, in 1543, for reasons Taylor can only speculate on, he fell afoul of the Inquisition. On his release, he moved to Duisberg, in Cleves, where for the rest of his life he managed to avoid the bitter religious conflicts sweeping Europe. In 1569, he produced his masterpiece: a large (53 x 84 inches) world map based on the cylindrical projection that has become permanently associated with his name. Taylor methodicallyfills in the details both of Mercator's career and its historical context, and he concludes by arguing that Mercator was, on the whole, a true scientist despite the limitations his era imposed on him. Very slow-moving, but informative.
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