The Affair of Rennes is a nest of enigmas that has baffled and enthralled readers in equal measure for more than fifty years. From a minor riddle of local history about a tiny village in the south of France, it has become a global phenomenon, inspiring countless articles, books, documentaries and even movies. Yet the core questions at the heart of the story have remained unsolved. Until now. In The Map and the Manuscript: Journeys in the Mysteries of the Two Rennes, author Simon M. Miles retraces his steps on a twenty-year investigation into the Affair and describes a series of breakthroughs which have broken the seals on this intriguing puzzle. For the first time, knowledge that has been carefully hidden from view for decades, and even longer, is revealed. The anonymous author of a strange surrealist poem is unmasked, and his identity proves to be the key to unlocking the riddles which have remained resolutely sealed. From the mysterious parchments, to the enigmatic book written by a local priest in the nineteenth century, to the persistent claims of alignments between significant sites in the landscape, the Affair of Rennes gives up its secrets in this book. Richly illustrated with 140 maps, charts, photographs and diagrams, The Map and the Manuscript marks a new era in understanding one of the great unsolved, mysteries of the twentieth century.

The Affair of Rennes is a nest of enigmas that has baffled and enthralled readers in equal measure for more than fifty years. From a minor riddle of local history about a tiny village in the south of France, it has become a global phenomenon, inspiring countless articles, books, documentaries and even movies. Yet the core questions at the heart of the story have remained unsolved. Until now. In The Map and the Manuscript: Journeys in the Mysteries of the Two Rennes, author Simon M. Miles retraces his steps on a twenty-year investigation into the Affair and describes a series of breakthroughs which have broken the seals on this intriguing puzzle. For the first time, knowledge that has been carefully hidden from view for decades, and even longer, is revealed. The anonymous author of a strange surrealist poem is unmasked, and his identity proves to be the key to unlocking the riddles which have remained resolutely sealed. From the mysterious parchments, to the enigmatic book written by a local priest in the nineteenth century, to the persistent claims of alignments between significant sites in the landscape, the Affair of Rennes gives up its secrets in this book. Richly illustrated with 140 maps, charts, photographs and diagrams, The Map and the Manuscript marks a new era in understanding one of the great unsolved, mysteries of the twentieth century.

Thousands of global facts at your fingertips with the best value quick-reference World Atlas on the market. Both physical and political geography is clearly illustrated alongside the great cities of our planet. The highest peak? The deepest ocean trench? The wettest, driest, longest, largest - we list the world's fascinating extremes. Crammed with practical information like a Distance Chart for World Cities, World Time Zones, over 200 State Flags and the top 100 most populous countries, we include around 15,000 places indexed for easy checking. Whether for the pub quiz, travel planning or school reference, this great value handy world atlas is crammed with everything you need to know. Alongside the topography and physical attributes of the earth we also show political boundaries and the great global cities, including transport hubs and places of interest from mosques to temples, palaces to zoos and shopping centres to tourist information centres. Features include: * 200 Flags of the world's major states and territories * 21 City centre maps: transport (road, rail, trams, light railways, bus and railway stations) and places of interest including religious buildings (churches, abbeys, cathedrals, synagogues, shrines, temples, mosques), museums, galleries, theatres, palaces, castles, parks, gardens, zoos, shopping centres, hospitals, Tourist Centres. * World city distance table * World time zones map * World country comparisons table - the population and areas of the world's top 100 most populous countries * World physical comparisons- largest oceans, longest rivers, biggest islands, highest peaks, deepest trenches. * Continental Comparator - for each one we show area, coldest place, hottest place, wettest place, driest place * World topographic maps - with coloured contour layers and hill-shading clearly outlining the Earth's surface. * World political maps - the latest boundary and geopolitical changes, with cities, provinces and countries shown. * Index of around 15,000 place-names - with geographical features like mountains, lakes and deserts, as well as towns.

A stunning illustrated edition of the magical bestseller - a perfect gift for Christmas! Winner of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize Winner of the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year Shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award Shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize Beautiful, thrilling and magical, Sunday Times bestselling-author Kiran Millwood Hargrave's critically-acclaimed first novel is a modern classic. 'Absolutely loved it from start to finish' TOM FLETCHER 'I read it, I loved it' MALORIE BLACKMAN 'Kiran Millwood Hargrave creates a spellbinding world of magic, myth and adventure' EMMA CARROLL Forbidden to leave her island, Isabella dreams of the faraway lands her cartographer father once mapped. When her friend disappears, she volunteers to guide the search. The world beyond the walls is a monster-filled wasteland - and beneath the dry rivers and smoking mountains, a fire demon is stirring from its sleep. Soon, following her map, her heart and an ancient myth, Isabella discovers the true end of her journey: to save the island itself. A beautifully written, multi award-winning story of friendship, discovery, myths and magic for any age - perfect for fans of Philip Pullman, Frances Hardinge or Katherine Rundell A perfect gift for Christmas, illustrated in colour by Olia Muza, and featuring a bonus chapter From the author of Julia and the Shark, Leila and the Blue Fox and The Mercies, chosen for the Richard & Judy Book Club Set in an extensive and stunningly-imagined parallel world imbued with magical realism

"Old maps lead you to strange and unexpected places, and none does so more ineluctably than the subject of this book: the giant, beguiling Waldseemuller world map of 1507." So begins this remarkable story of the map that gave America its name.
For millennia Europeans believed that the world consisted of three parts: Europe, Africa, and Asia. They drew the three continents in countless shapes and sizes on their maps, but occasionally they hinted at the existence of a "fourth part of the world," a mysterious, inaccessible place, separated from the rest by a vast expanse of ocean. It was a land of myth--until 1507, that is, when Martin Waldseemuller and Matthias Ringmann, two obscure scholars working in the mountains of eastern France, made it real. Columbus had died the year before convinced that he had sailed to Asia, but Waldseemuller and Ringmann, after reading about the Atlantic discoveries of Columbus's contemporary Amerigo Vespucci, came to a startling conclusion: Vespucci had reached the fourth part of the world. To celebrate his achievement, Waldseemuller and Ringmann printed a huge map, for the first time showing the New World surrounded by water and distinct from Asia, and in Vespucci's honor they gave this New World a name: America.
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The Fourth Part of the World "is the story behind that map, a thrilling saga of geographical and intellectual exploration, full of outsize thinkers and voyages. Taking a kaleidoscopic approach, Toby Lester traces the origins of our modern worldview. His narrative sweeps across continents and centuries, zeroing in on different portions of the map to reveal strands of ancient legend, Biblical prophecy, classical learning, medieval exploration, imperial ambitions, and more. In Lester's telling the map comes alive: Marco Polo and the early Christian missionaries trek across Central Asia and China; Europe's early humanists travel to monastic libraries to recover ancient texts; Portuguese merchants round up the first West African slaves; Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci make their epic voyages of discovery; and finally, vitally, Nicholas Copernicus makes an appearance, deducing from the new geography shown on the Waldseemuller map that the earth could not lie at the center of the cosmos. The map literally altered humanity's worldview.
One thousand copies of the map were printed, yet only one remains. Discovered accidentally in 1901 in the library of a German castle it was bought in 2003 for the unprecedented sum of $10 million by the Library of Congress, where it is now on permanent public display. Lavishly illustrated with rare maps and diagrams, "The Fourth Part of the World "is the story of that map: the dazzling story of the geographical and intellectual journeys that have helped us decipher our world.

Maps and mapping are fundamentally political. Whether they are authoritarian, hegemonic, participatory or critical, they are most often guided by the desire to have control over space, and always involve power relations. This book takes stock of the knowledge acquired and the debates conducted in the field of critical cartography over some thirty years. The Politics of Mapping includes analyses of recent semiological, social and technological innovations in the production and use of maps and, more generally, geographical information. The chapters are the work of specialists in the field, in the form of a thematic analysis, a theoretical essay, or a reflection on a professional, scientific or militant practice. From mapping issues for modern states to the digital and big data era, from maps produced by Indigenous peoples or migrant-advocacy organizations in Europe, the perspectives are both historical and contemporary.

In this comprehensive study, Kenneth Morgan provides an authoritative account of European exploration and discovery in Australia. The book presents a detailed chronological overview of European interests in the Australian continent, from initial speculations about the 'Great Southern Land' to the major hydrographic expeditions of the 19th century. In particular, he analyses the early crossings of the Dutch in the 17th century, the exploits of English 'buccaneer adventurer' William Dampier, the famous voyages of James Cook and Matthew Flinders, and the little-known French annexation of Australia in 1772. Introducing new findings and drawing on the latest in historiographical research, this book situates developments in navigation, nautical astronomy and cartography within the broader contexts of imperial, colonial, and maritime history.

The nineteenth century was an era of breathtakingly ambitious geographic expeditions across the Americas. The seminal Chorographic Commission of Colombia, which began in 1850 and lasted about a decade, was one of Latin America's most extensive. The commission's mandate was to define and map the young republic and its resources with an eye toward modernization. In this history of the commission, Nancy Appelbaum focuses on the geographers' fieldwork practices and visual production as the men traversed the mountains, savannahs, and forests of more than thirty provinces in order to delineate the country's territorial and racial composition. Their assumptions and methods, Appelbaum argues, contributed to a long-lasting national imaginary. What jumps out of the commission's array of reports, maps, sketches, and paintings is a portentous tension between the marked differences that appeared before the eyes of the geographers in the field and the visions of sameness to which they aspired. The commissioners and their patrons believed that a prosperous republic required a unified and racially homogeneous population, but the commission's maps and images paradoxically emphasized diversity and helped create a ""country of regions."" By privileging the whiter inhabitants of the cool Andean highlands over those of the boiling tropical lowlands, the commission left a lasting but problematic legacy for today's Colombians.

Following the continued success of the Scottish Maps Calendar, Birlinn is once again proud to collaborate with the National Library of Scotland. This new calendar features more of the most beautiful maps of Scotland ever made. From the very earliest representations of Scotland in the second century AD, through the first printed maps of the 16th century and the achievement of the Ordnance Survey in the 1920s and 1930s to the most recent satellite imagery, these images tell the story of a nation.

The sea monsters on medieval and Renaissance maps, whether swimming vigorously, gambolling amid the waves, attacking ships, or simply displaying themselves for our appreciation, are one of the most visually engaging elements on these maps, and yet they have never been carefully studied. The subject is important not only in the history of cartography, art, and zoological illustration, but also in the history of the geography of the 'marvellous' and of western conceptions of the ocean. Moreover, the sea monsters depicted on maps can supply important insights into the sources, influences, and methods of the cartographers who drew or painted them. In this highly-illustrated book the author analyzes the most important examples of sea monsters on medieval and Renaissance maps produced in Europe, beginning with the earliest mappaemundi on which they appear in the tenth century and continuing to the end of the sixteenth century.

The magical bestseller: a classic story to read again and again Winner of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize Winner of the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year Shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award Shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize Beautiful, thrilling and magical, Sunday Times bestselling-author Kiran Millwood Hargrave's debut novel has all the makings of a modern classic. 'Absolutely loved it from start to finish' TOM FLETCHER 'I read it, I loved it' MALORIE BLACKMAN 'Kiran Millwood Hargrave creates a spellbinding world of magic, myth and adventure' EMMA CARROLL Forbidden to leave her island, Isabella dreams of the faraway lands her cartographer father once mapped. When her friend disappears, she volunteers to guide the search. The world beyond the walls is a monster-filled wasteland - and beneath the dry rivers and smoking mountains, a fire demon is stirring from its sleep. Soon, following her map, her heart and an ancient myth, Isabella discovers the true end of her journey: to save the island itself. A beautifully written, multi award-winning story of friendship, discovery, myths and magic for any age - perfect for fans of Philip Pullman, Frances Hardinge or Katherine Rundell From the author of Julia and the Shark and The Mercies, chosen for the Richard & Judy Book Club Set in an extensive and stunningly-imagined parallel world imbued with magical realism A gorgeous gift for readers young and old - will stay with you long after reading

The impacts of climate change are beginning to be felt throughout the world, yet there is no clear explanation as to how these changes will alter our future. The research being conducted within the geospatial science field is pivotal to understanding the effects the global environment is experiencing. The Handbook of Research on Geospatial Science and Technologies is an essential scholarly reference source that evaluates the current methodologies and trends in geospatial science, and how these insights provide society with more efficient and effective ways to manage natural resources. Featuring discussions on relevant topics such as cartography, geographical information systems, remotely sensed data, and sustainability management, this publication is an informative resource for all academicians, students, scientists, and researchers that are interested in emerging developments within geospatial science.

This book describes the discovery of the stratosphere itself and of various unexpected phenomena in the stratosphere: e.g., a manned balloon flight in 1901 as high as 11 km; an expedition to Lake Victoria in Africa in 1908 which found inexplicable west winds in the stratosphere above the equator; and the discovery of the ozone layer in the 1930s, the Berlin Phenomenon in 1952, the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation in 1960, the influence of volcanic eruptions in 1970, the ozone hole in 1984, and the influence of the 11-year solar cycle in 1987. The book also describes how these phenomena are connected with each other and how they create variability in the climate system, in addition to man-made changes, such as the decrease in ozone. We use the stratosphere as one example of Nature's complexity and of how often discoveries are ignored because they do not fit prevalent concepts.

The Charter of the United Nations was signed in 1945 by 51 countries representing all continents, paving the way for the creation of the United Nations on 24 October 1945. The Statute of the International Court of Justice forms part of the Charter. The aim of the Charter is to save humanity from war; to reaffirm human rights and the dignity and worth of the human person; to proclaim the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small; and to promote the prosperity of all humankind. The Charter is the foundation of international peace and security.

This book comprises 17 chapters derived from new research papers presented at the 7th International Symposium of the ICA Commission on the History of Cartography, held in Oxford from 13 to 15 September 2018 and jointly organized by the ICA Commission on Topographic Mapping and the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. The overall conference theme was 'Mapping Empires: Colonial Cartographies of Land and Sea'. The book presents a breadth of original research undertaken by internationally recognized authors in the field of historical cartography and offers a significant contribution to the development of this growing field and to many interdisciplinary aspects of geography, history and the geographic information sciences. It is intended for researchers, teachers, postgraduate students, map librarians and archivists.

The book presents and discusses a large corpus of Jewish maps of the Holy Land that were drawn by Jewish scholars from the 11th to the 20th century, and thus fills a significant lacuna both in the history of cartography and in Jewish studies. The maps depict the biblical borders of the Holy Land, the allotments of the tribes, and the forty years of wanderings in the desert. Most of these maps are in Hebrew although there are several in Yiddish, Ladino and in European languages. The book focuses on four aspects: it presents an up-to-date corpus of known maps of various types and genres; it suggests a classification of these maps according to their source, shape and content; it presents and analyses the main topics that were depicted in the maps; and it puts the maps in their historical and cultural contexts, both within the Jewish world and the sphere of European cartography of their time. The book is an innovative contribution to the fields of history of cartography and Jewish studies. It is written for both professional readers and the general public. The Hebrew edition (2014), won the Izhak Ben-Zvi Prize.

Spanning the Islamic world, from ninth-century Baghdad to nineteenth-century Iran, this book tells the story of the key Muslim map-makers and the art of Islamic cartography. Muslims were uniquely placed to explore the edges of the inhabited world and their maps stretched from Isfahan to Palermo, from Istanbul to Cairo and Aden. Over a similar period, Muslim artists developed distinctive styles, often based on geometrical patterns and calligraphy. Map-makers, including al-Khwarazmi and al-Idrisi, combined novel cartographical techniques with art, science and geographical knowledge. The results could be aesthetically stunning and mathematically sophisticated, politically charged as well as a celebration of human diversity. 'Islamic Maps' examines Islamic visual interpretations of the world in their historical context, through the lives of the map-makers themselves. What was the purpose of their maps, what choices did they make and what was the argument they were trying to convey? Lavishly illustrated with stunning manuscripts, beautiful instruments and Qibla charts, this book shows how maps constructed by Muslim map-makers capture the many dimensions of Islamic civilisation, providing a window into the worldviews of Islamic societies.

This book focuses on the integration of spatial statistics, GIS-technology, ecosystem studies, and scenario modelling. Its main aim is to extend the information gained at the stand level to larger spatial scales, i.e. to forest districts, forest landscapes or to the total area of Lower Saxony. The studies demonstrate the potential and limitations of regionalization approaches for forest ecological variables. The results provide valuable spatial information for forest managers and landscape planners as well as for policy-makers. Some spatial models outlined in this book have been implemented as useful tools in present forest management. With current improvements of data quality, e.g. from remote sensing and refined ground-based inventories, methods are now available to develop large-scale approaches to forest ecology and management. This book is an indispensable tool for scientists and those involved in forest management.

The region of Central and Eastern Europe has a rich and long history in cart- raphy. Many important improvements in mapping and cartography have been proposed and performed by cartographers and researchers of that region. The long and outstanding history has led to a lively and vivid presence. Now contemporary methods for depicting the earth and its cultural and natural attributes are used. This book focuses on the contemporary activities in all major realms of cartography in Central and Eastern Europe. It covers aspects of theoretical, topographical, thematic and multimedia cartography, which have been presented at the frst Symposium on Cartography for Central and Eastern Europe, which took place from February 16th to 17th, 2009 in Vienna, Austria and was organized by the International Cartographic Association (ICA) and the Vienna University of Technology. The symposium's aim was to bring together cartographers, GI scientists and those working in related disciplines from CEE with the goal of offering a platform for discussion and exchange and stimulation of joined projects. About 130 scientists from 19 countries followed the invitation and visited Vienna, Austria. A selection of fully reviewed contributions is edited in this book and is meant as a mirror of the wide range of activities in the realm of cartography in this region. The innovative and contemporary character of these topics has lead to a great variety of interdis- plinary contributions. Topics cover an enormous range with heterogenous relati- ships to the main book issues.

One of the most beautiful maps to survive the Great Age of Discoveries, the 1513 world map drawn by Ottoman admiral Piri Reis is also one of the most mysterious. Gregory McIntosh has uncovered new evidence in the map that shows it to be among the most important ever made.

This detailed study offers new commentary and explication of a major milestone in cartography. Correcting earlier work of Paul Kahle and pointing out the traps that have caught subsequent scholars, McIntosh disproves the dubious conclusion that the Reis map embodied Columbus's Third Voyage map of 1498, showing that it draws instead on the Second Voyage of 1493-1496. He also refutes the popular misinterpretation that Reis's depictions of Antarctica are evidence of either ancient civilizations or extraterrestrial visitation. McIntosh brings together all that has been previously known about the map and also assembles for the first time the translations of all inscriptions on the map and analyzes all place-names given for New World and Atlantic islands. His work clarifies long-standing mysteries and opens up new ways of looking at the history of exploration.

A STUNNINGLY ILLUSTRATED BOOK REVEALING THE GREATEST MYTHS, LIES AND BLUNDERS ON MAPS 'Highly recommended' - Andrew Marr 'A spectacular, enjoyable and eye-opening read' - Jonathan Ross The Phantom Atlas is an atlas of the world not as it ever existed, but as it was thought to be. These marvellous and mysterious phantoms - non-existent islands, invented mountain ranges, mythical civilisations and other fictitious geography - were all at various times presented as facts on maps and atlases. This book is a collection of striking antique maps that display the most erroneous cartography, with each illustration accompanied by the story behind it. Exploration, map-making and mythology are all brought together to create a colourful tapestry of monsters, heroes and volcanoes; swindlers, mirages and murderers. Sometimes the stories are almost impossible to believe, and remarkably, some of the errors were still on display in maps published in the 21st century. Throughout much of the 19th century more than 40 different mapmakers included the Mountains of Kong, a huge range of peaks stretching across the entire continent of Africa, in their maps - but it was only in 1889 when Louis Gustave Binger revealed the whole thing to be a fake. For centuries, explorers who headed to Patagonia returned with tales of the giants they had met who lived there, some nine feet tall. Then there was Gregor MacGregor, a Scottish explorer who returned to London to sell shares in a land he had discovered in South America. He had been appointed the Cazique of Poyais, and bestowed with many honours by the local king of this unspoiled paradise. Now he was offering others the chance to join him and make their fortune there, too - once they had paid him a bargain fee for their passage... The Phantom Atlas is a beautifully produced volume, packed with stunning maps and drawingsof places and people that never existed. The remarkable stories behind them all are brilliantly told by Edward Brooke-Hitching in a book that will appeal to cartophiles everywhere.