Złoty atlas. Największe wyprawy, odkrycia i poszukiwania na mapach

by Edward Brooke-Hitching, Janusz Szczepański (translator)

"Wyśmienita rzecz. Rzetelnie przygotowana, napisana z ikrą i pięknie ilustrowana. Urzekająca!" - „Times Literary Supplement”

Autor międzynarodowego bestsellera Atlas lądów niebyłych (REBIS 2017) powraca z pasjonującą historią odkryć geograficznych zilustrowaną najrzadszymi, najpiękniejszymi mapami w dziejach kartografii. Fascynujące kompendium, pełne zaskakujących faktów, obficie czerpie z najnowszych badań.

EDWARD BROOKE-HITCHING, syn antykwariusza, jest autorem Fox Tossing, Octopus Wrestling and Other Forgotten Sports (2015) i nieuleczalnym mapofilem. Mieszka w Londynie wśród stert zakurzonych starych map i książek.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Maps, Art, Travel, Science, Geography

256 pages, Hardcover

First published October 18, 2018

About the author

Edward Brooke-Hitching is a writer and award-winning documentary filmmaker. The son of an antiquarian book dealer, he read English and Film at the University of Exeter before entering independent film production. ‘Fox Tossing, Octopus Wrestling and Other Forgotten Sports’ is his first book. He lives in London.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

As regular haunter of r/mapporn with a large appetite for history, The Golden Atlas was a pretty perfect Christmas gift for me, a gorgeously illustrated book featuring lots of ancient maps and the stories of how the lands depicted on them were discovered.

Taking us from antiquity up until the Victorian age, when we finally inked in bits of the last of the world’s unknown lands, some of my favourites were those that were based heavily on conjecture. Whether these were the maps of the mythological beasts thought to inhabit the seas around Scandinavia, or the maps drawn by men simply from other people’s bitty descriptions from tall tales (see the map of the UK complete with a wonky Scotland, or the map of the USA that believed California was separated from the mainland by the sea), they all have something interesting to offer. Some of my other favourites were those that had large bits missing, which allowed us to see how they were slowly replaced by more coastlines and rivers that were then discovered over time. And as time went on, and the maps become increasingly ornate and intricate, it became very easy to lose large chunks of time staring at the same page until it could all be soaked in.

Each chapter looks at a different age of exploration and the personalities who did the discovering – none of them are particularly in-depth but rather give a good overview over a couple of pages instead – and plenty of these have given me more explorers and their journeys to search out more on for further reading.

**Also posted at Cannonball Read 12**

[Ola (Wiewiórka w okularach) · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://wiewiorkawokularach.blogspot....

Każdy z nas chyba chociaż raz w życiu pomyślał o tym, co by było, gdyby odkrył nieznany ląd albo pożeglował za krawędź świata. Co by było, gdyby dotarł tam, gdzie do tej pory nie postała ludzka stopa? To, co nieznane od zawsze przyciągało do siebie ludzi, którzy chcieli to odkryć i poznać. I właśnie takim ludziom i ich osiągnięciom poświęcona jest książka Edwarda Brooch-Hitchinga Złoty atlas. Największe wyprawy, odkrycia i poszukiwania na mapach.
Pierwsze, co mnie zachwyciło w tej książce, to jej wydanie. Format większy niż standardowy, twarda oprawa i okładka z tłoczonymi złotymi literami, przedstawiająca mapę świata. Już to skradło moje serce. A środek jest jeszcze lepszy. Nie ma strony, żeby nie zamieszczono na niej jakiegoś zdjęcia albo mapy. I to wszystko w wysokiej jakości na dobrym papierze. Już samo oglądanie tej książki to czysta przyjemność, ale i jej zawartość merytoryczna jest naprawdę warta uwagi.
Każdy rozdział to właściwie jedna, może dwie strony, rzadko kiedy zdarza się więcej. W większości są one wypełnione fotografiami, ale tekstu też znalazło się tam sporo. Rozdziały ułożone są chronologicznie, począwszy od czasów starożytnych i pierwszych, dość krótkich wypraw morskich, przez epokę wielkich odkryć geograficznych, aż do współczesności i dotarcia drogą morską na oba bieguny. Właściwie za symboliczny koniec tej książki autor traktuje moment, gdy kartografia wyzbywa się estetycznych ozdobników, a staje się nauką i narzędziem do prac badawczych. Jednak opisane wydarzenia to łącznie ponad 4 tysiące lat historii, wypraw, odkryć i przekraczania granic. Każda wyprawa to zapełnienie białego fragmentu na mapie, osiągnięcie nowego punktu, dotarcie tam, gdzie nikt wcześniej nie był. Dzięki tym wszystkim ludziom, których losy nierzadko kończyły się tragicznie (wystarczy przypomnieć śmierć kapitana Jamesa Cooka na Hawajach), wiemy dzisiaj, gdzie leży Australia i jak wygląda linia brzegowa Afryki, czy też gdzie znajduje się Madagaskar.
Chociaż Złoty atlas to pozycja popularnonaukowa, to czyta się ją jak najlepszą powieść przygodową. A to wszystko dzięki lekkiemu pióru autora. Książkę czyta się naprawdę szybko i przyjemnie, każdy rozdział to odrębna historia; rzadko kiedy się one zazębiają, ale wszystkie mają jeden motyw przewodni – ludzką ciekawość świata i chęć parcia do przodu, odkrywania nieznanego. O wielu z tych historii już wcześniej mówiono na lekcjach w szkole, ale sporo z nich dla laików i osób dopiero zaczynających się interesować tematem odkryć geograficznych będzie nowościami bądź też ciekawym uzupełnieniem wiedzy. Edward Brooch-Hitching tworzy lekką i przystępną narrację, przez którą niemal się płynie. I chociaż, jak już wspominałam, ta lektura ma nieść głównie wiedzę, to przedstawiane wydarzenia toczą się wartką akcją. Co ważniejsze, czytelnik nie jest zarzucany toną suchych, encyklopedycznych faktów, przez które ciężko przebrnąć i je spamiętać, a ich czytanie sprawia, że szybko człowiek się męczy przy lekturze.
Złoty atlas to godna polecenia i ciekawa książka dla każdego, kto interesuje się odkryciami geograficznymi na przestrzeni lat. Można się z niej dowiedzieć wielu ciekawostek, do tej pory nieznanych ze względu na pobieżne traktowanie tematu na lekcjach historii. Oczywiście, pasjonatom i znawcom tematu ta książka niewiele wniesie w wiedzę, ale z drugiej strony to nie jest pozycja stricte naukowa i fachowa. Jej celem jest spopularyzowanie poruszanej tematyki i zainteresowanie nią szerszego grona czytelników. Z czystym sumieniem mogę powiedzieć, że ten cel udało się osiągnąć, a po ten tytuł śmiało może sięgnąć każdy, kto chce dowiedzieć się czegoś nowego o otaczającym go świecie.

[Molly De Montaigne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Completely enthralling book. Couldn't have hoped for a better follow up to The Phantom Atlas.

Ed Brooke-Hitching has compiled a book of what is, quite easily, the most gorgeous collection of maps I've ever seen. The stories and anecdotes that go with them are transporting and evocative. There's so much in this book, but not once did it feel like it was crammed or overdone. It's the perfect book to flick through and it's the perfect book to read. I adore it. I want more, honestly.
One of my favourite things about it, is that the explorations range from 2500BC to the present 2000's. Exploration isn't something old and dead and unreachable. Exploration is everywhere, and it's now. The Golden Atlas has fired me up for adventure like nothing else has.

This will be a go-to for presents for the next six months, I'm sure. Truly brilliant work. I've never held a more ornate, well crafted book, either. Everything about it is QUALITY! Thank you, Ed Brooke-Hitching.

[Helen Cazadora De Libros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uno de esos libros que te hacen viajar, explorar y aprender sin darte cuenta, página a página.
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La Editorial Blume tiene unos libros fascinantes y éste además posee una cubierta de textura deliciosa, con esa sensación de estar acariciando un telar antiguo.
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No hay que dejarse engañar por esa palabra "Atlas" que nos puede transportar a las clases de geografía, para mí tediosas 😎. No, aquí, puedes ver todos los mapas que se han ido trazando a medida que el mundo iba siendo descubierto, y podemos disfrutar de las joyas de la corona como "El Portulano de Maggiolo" vendido por 9 mill. €.
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Nos enseña las hazañas de exploradores como Pizarro, Magallanes, Colón, Marco Polo, Zhen He, Vasco de Gama, Ponce de León y exploradoras olvidadas por la historia como Mery Sibilia Merian o los diarios de Lady Montagu.
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El libro da para dedicarle un día a la semana, destacando curiosidades e ilustraciones preciosas, como las que mostraban los monstruos que se creia que habitaban en los océanos cuando los vikingos comenzaron a hacer sus incursiones navieras.
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Y como olvidarnos de los piratas con patente de corso y sus viajes. Esos que nos hacen querer ser, como dice Sabina, "pirata cojo, con pata de palo, con parche en el ojo y cara de malo" .
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¿Mapa con la X que marca el tesoro?... aquí el tesoro es el libro de mapas.

[Adam Dawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 / 5 for 'The Golden Atlas' by Edward Brooke-Hitching

This book is an astounding achievement!

This is Brooke-Hitching's guide to the history of humanity's successful (and unsuccessful) exploration of the world, and the developing quality and scope of the maps that were made alongside these historical voyagaes of discovery.

This book is, in equal parts, utterly enthralling, meticulously researched, wonderfully narrated and beautifully presented. Quite simply, one of the finest non-fiction books I have ever read. Absolutely sumptuous from the first page to the last.

I will be purchasing the author's other books as soon as possible.

5 / 5

[Atwalys Tristan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly tour de force...sublimely illustrated... splendid....another triumph for Brooke-Hitching....Incredible...a true feast for every history buff, with everybody interested by cartography around ...Amazing !!! ⭐⭐⭐⭐

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A strange ambition burned within me..."
- Roald Amundsen

A really beautiful hardback, filled with interesting snippets and intricate maps. I particularly enjoyed the earliest and latest expeditions.

[Lloyd Downey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a fascinating book. Mainly about exploration and mapping the world. What I found especially interesting was the way that the history of mapping the world emulates the scientific process. Various assumptions are made and maps drawn and exploration takes place based on these assumptions. When they don't correspond with what the explorers find, then the maps are updated with new knowledge and the iterative process continues, In one case that I recall, and explorer sighted a large body of water, which he took to be the Pacific Ocean. But it was just a lake and it took many years to correct this piece of information. The other interesting thing was that the exploration phase comes to an abrupt halt....more or less with Shackelton....though the author speculates about future exploration of regions beyond the earth....and I guess, this is actually happening right now. I extracted a few snippets that made a particular impression as below:
Ferdinand Magellan explored the corridor of the Strait of Magellan, emerging into the Pacific for the first time in 1520.
The English Muscovy Company sent trading missions into Russia and Central Asia, scanning for a Northeast Passage to China; while the British East India Company sought the treasures of the Orient via more southern routes in competition with the Dutch East India Company (VOC).
Countless explorers were inspired to follow Cook’s example, and maps of continental coastlines grew ever more detailed
2250 BC-AD 150 BC • Exploration and Mapping of the Ancient World
Necho turned his attention to exploration farther south than previous Red Sea navigations. At some point between 610 BC and 594 BC he commissioned a force of expert Phoenician pilots to lead this unprecedented journey......The men sailed south along Africa’s east coast until finally turning westward, around South Africa, with the sun on their right. (Herodotus, without a concept of the Earth’s curvature, found this baffling.)
Another figure mentioned by Herodotus is Scylax of Caryanda, a Greek in the service of the Persians who explored the coasts of the Indian Ocean and rounded the Arabian Peninsula in 515
In 325 BC a geographer named Pytheas of the Greek colony and trade centre Massalia (Marseilles) made his own extraordinary voyage of discovery, documenting for the first time the coastline of Great Britain, northern Europe and lands beyond.
833 • Islamic Geographers and the Search for Knowledge
By 833 Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, a Persian scholar of Baghdad’s House of Wisdom, made the first major reworking of Geography with his Book of the Description of the Earth.......Following this, Ibn Khordadbeh wrote the earliest surviving Arabic book of administrative geography, detailing the trade routes all the way to the Indies with maps and recording the land, people and culture
The polymath Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, who in 990 at the age of only seventeen accurately calculated the global latitude of his town..... travelled extensively...throughout India, providing meticulous geographical detail and writing on the various customs and creeds he encountered, for which he was given the title ‘al-Ustadh’ (The Master).
986-1010 • The Vikings Discover America
In 986 the Norseman Bjarni Herjólfsson made landfall in Iceland, intending to meet up with his family....thjey had left so he sailed furher west ...until finally he met with strange terrain–he had discovered Labrador (northeast Canada)...... (Incidentally, it is Erikson, not Herjólfsson, who is given credit for the discovery in the saga of Erik the Red.)
1271-95 • The Travels of Marco Polo
In 1269 a 15-year-old Marco met his father Niccolò Polo and his uncle Maffeo for the first time, when the men returned to Venice from a mammoth journey to the East.
After an estimated three-and-a-half years of travel, the Venetians arrived at the palace of Kublai Khan. The Polo men were received with great enthusiasm, and the emperor was presented with papal letters and blessed oil of Jerusalem.
1405-33 • The Extraordinary Voyages of Chinese Admiral Zheng He
When the third Ming emperor Yongle rose to power in 1402, the Chinese gaze extended farther, beyond its borders, with the dispatching of an enormous expeditionary force into the South Pacific and Indian oceans as an unprecedented show of strength
For the next seven years the fleet ranged the Indian ocean. By the fourth voyage (1413-15) the crew totalled 28,560 men, and the massive force had progressed along Arabian coasts, reaching as far as Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
1435-88 • The Portuguese Explore the African Tropics
Under Henry’s sponsorship a new kind of ship, the caravel, was developed in 1451, replacing the clumsier and more fragile, fixed single-mast balinger. With its triangular sails, the caravel allowed for beating, or tacking, meaning the ships could travel on a zigzag pattern upwind.
1492-1504 • Christopher Columbus Crosses the Atlantic Ocean
Columbus had communications with the astronomer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, who provided Columbus with a copy of a letter and map he had originally sent King Afonso V of Portugal in 1474 outlining the idea of reaching the Indies by sailing westward.
1500 • Pedro Cabral Cracks the Atlantic Code and Discovers Brazil
King Manuel selected Cabral as commander-in-chief for the next mission to India, and on 3 March 1500 the expedition of thirteen ships and 1500 men left Lisbon.........By this time the navigational technique known as the Volta do Mar was well known to Portuguese navigators, and after Cabral had reached the island country of Cape Verde on the west African coast the thirteen ships launched into the manoeuvre, which involved sailing to the east by first heading out across the Atlantic to the west, to loop back and capture the westerlies that would sweep them in an easterly direction around the southern cape of Africa.
But on this loop, the navigators had discovered what is known today as Brazil.
1513 • Juan Ponce de León Discovers Florida
When Columbus departed on his second voyage to South America in 1493, he took with him a 1400-strong contingent of men dreaming of making their golden fortune–this included a former soldier named Juan Ponce de León.
1594-1611 • Willem Barentsz, Henry Hudson and the Quest for an Arctic Passage
The idea had been accepted that water of great depth and energy could not be frozen; that the Midnight Sun at the top of the world shone with such unbroken intensity that an uncongealed sea must await beyond a peripheral belt of ice.
1595-1617 • Sir Walter Ralegh Searches for El Dorado
The trouble with rumour, especially of the geographical strain, is its talent for adaptation. The twelfth-century tale of Prester John, for example told of a fabulously wealthy Nestorian Christian monarch whose vast resources could be a valuable ally for the Crusaders mourning the shock loss of the county of Edessa to Saracen forces in 1144. But where precisely was this kingdom? Otto, bishop of Freising in Germany, writes in his contemporary chronicle of it being in ‘the extreme orient, beyond Persia and Armenia’, but no trace was ever found. The search for this ‘lost’ priest–king gripped Europe for five hundred years.
1606-29 • The Dutch East India Company and the European Discovery of Australia
The Dutch East India Company (VOC), which was established in 1602 to regulate the Dutch trading ships now trafficking regularly with the East. It is almost impossible to overstate the size, power and wealth of this chartered company,
Between 1602 and 1796 almost one million men were dispatched by the VOC to sail their secret spice routes to the Indies, harvesting a total haulage of about 2.5 million tons of Asian goods.
The winds blasted Brouwer’s three-ship party across the Indian Ocean, after which the west Australian current swept them north to Java. This would become the default route for all VOC expeditions.
All new navigational data and discoveries were carefully recorded by the VOC but kept hidden in their private Zee-Fakel (‘ Sea Torch’) atlases, successfully protected from theft and leaks, on the whole, for around 150 years, maintaining Dutch hegemony of the spice trade.
1642-44 • Abel Tasman Finds New Zealand
On 14 August 1642 Tasman and the vessels Heemskerck and Zeehaen launched from Batavia, heading to Mauritius to capture the winds that would take them in a southerly direction. These they found, and though the intention had been to reach a record-breaking latitude of 54 ° S, at 42 ° S they were swamped with thick mist and spun eastwards. They continued on this course, unknowingly sailing below Australia, until on 24 November land was sighted–the first European observation of Tasmania.
1683-1711 • The Educated Pirate: The Adventures of William Dampier
Dampier is cited in the Oxford English Dictionary more than 1000 times for introducing words to the English language including avocado, barbecue, breadfruit, the verb caress, cashew, catamaran, chopsticks, posse, settlement, snapper, soy sauce, stilts (as house supports), subsistence (in farming), subspecies, swampy, thundercloud, snug and tortilla.
1725-41 • Vitus Bering’s Expedition into the Great Frozen North
January 1725, Bering and his thirty-four men set off from St Petersburg for Okhotsk on the Pacific coast on a mammoth 3500 mile-(5633km-) land crossing of some of the world’s most brutal terrain......By the time they reached Okhotsk in June, forty-six men had deserted and several others had died, but they pushed on undaunted to the next stage: to sail to the Kamchatka Peninsula.
1791-95 • George Vancouver Reveals America’s Northwest Coast
By October 1798 Vancouver was back in London, dying in obscurity only two-and-a-half years later from the illness that had taken hold during the Nootka surveys. As well as leaving behind a 500,000-word record of his expedition just 100 pages short of completion, the man considered first among the scientific explorers of the eighteenth century had added 388 place names to the world map, with islands, peninsulas, mountains and bays around the world still bearing his name.
1795-1806 • Mungo Park Explores North Africa
Of the forty-five men that left Pisania on 4 May 1805, only eleven arrived at Bamako on 19 August. Most were claimed by dysentery, yellow fever and malaria; the survivors managing to overcome these and the violent onslaught of weather, insects and native robbers they were too weak to fight off.
1799-1802 • Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland Explore South America
In November 1800 Humboldt and Bonpland sailed for Cuba for a brief visit, before returning to the mainland for another river survey, this time 500 miles (800km) of the Magdalena River. The inexhaustible pair followed this with a study of Ecuador’s volcanoes, scaling the 15,500ft-(4724m-) high active stratovolcano Pichincha on the second attempt, after a mysterious illness (altitude sickness) initially caused Humboldt to pass out.
In 1802 they then made their famous attempt on Chimborazo (the highest mountain on Earth if one measures from the centre of the planet rather sea level).
1819-20 • William Edward Parry Penetrates the Arctic Archipelago
Still a lieutenant, in 1819 Parry was dispatched by the Admiralty with his own strengthened ships, the bomb-vessel Hecla and the gun-brig Griper, to return to Lancaster Sound,
At 9.15 p.m. on 4 September, Parry recorded the moment the ships made the landmark crossing of the meridian of 110 ° west from Greenwich, a record that entitled he and his men to a £ 5000 reward offered by Parliament.
. [I note that the ice closed in on them inn Sept and it wasn’t until the following August that the ice began to melt].
1839-43 • James Clark Ross and the Search for the Magnetic Poles
By 1600, oceanic sailors were familiar with the caveat of the compass for piloting, that rather than pointing consistently at true north (defined as north according to the Earth’s axis) the needle pointed elsewhere, to a ‘magnetic north’....... (Columbus had noticed the variations in September 1492, but decided not to mention it to his men
Ross was granted use of the 370-ton flagship Erebus and the 340-ton Terror, more famous for their later service in the mission of John Franklin to search for the Northwest Passage. The expedition left the Cornish coast on 5 October 1839, rounding the Cape of Good Hope in April 1840 on its way to the Desolation Islands (Kerguelen Islands) in the South Indian Ocean.......From this point in explorational history, Antarctica would be left in peace for decades, abandoned–no man would advance further south than the 78 ° 10’ S position of Ross for another sixty years.
1845-47 • The Mysterious Disappearance of the Franklin Expedition
The most exciting developments in recent years, however, have been the discoveries of the wreck of the Erebus, in 2014, and two years later the Terror, found submerged in Terror Bay off the southwest coast of King William Island.
1846 • The Age of the Female Traveller Begins
1699, at the age of fifty-two, she drew up her will and secured funds for a voyage independently, by selling 255 of her own paintings. With special permission granted by the City of Amsterdam, she bought passage to the Labadist colony of La Providence in Suriname, on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America......With her younger daughter Dorothea, Merian spent two years in Suriname, collecting specimens and observing and painting more than ninety species of animals and over sixty species of plants.
On her return to Amsterdam she published the results of her adventure in 1705 with Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (‘ Transformation of the Surinamese insects’), one of the most beautiful works of natural history ever created......Merian’s recordings would be instrumental in the revolutionary systematic botany of Carl Linnaeus,......and her studies of the life cycles of insects formed one of the earliest demolishings of the popular belief in ‘spontaneous generation’,
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Habitually defiant of convention, in 1710 at the age of twenty-one she spurned the advances of the wonderfully named Clotworthy Skeffington to elope with Sir Edward Wortley Montagu. When her husband was posted to Constantinople in 1716 as British Ambassador to Turkey, she shocked London society by insisting on accompanying him.......Montagu is also remembered for introducing smallpox inoculation into Western medicine, after witnessing it practised during her Turkish travels. Seventy-nine years before Edward Jenner famously inoculated an 8-year-old boy with his vaccine drawn from cowpox in 1796,
1853-73 • David Livingstone, Henry Morton Stanley and the ‘Dark Continent’
By now it was apparent that Livingstone had shifted interest from converting Africans to Christianity to more fully exploring the African continent. In 1852, he sent Mary and the children home to England, where they lived in penury while he continued his explorations in Africa. [A nice touch].
Overall, I liked it. Not all explorers or all regions are covered , but he does a pretty good job. Four stars from me.

[John Isles · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a wonderful idea that fails in the implementation: tales of world exploration are well told and illustrated with a magnificent collection of historical maps; but most of the maps are reproduced on too small a scale to be read. It really should have been published in a larger format.

[Carlton · Rating 3 out of 5]

A somewhat breathless and episodic story of recorded world exploration, mainly from a European viewpoint, feeling more like a “coffee table “ book rushing on towards the next map, rather than providing more detail and context. Physically, the hardback is also slightly smaller than I would have liked and as there are reasonable white borders on the pages, this makes the maps smaller than I would wish.
Having outlined Marco Polo’s travels along the Silk Road and the exploration of the Indian Ocean and Arabia by the Chinese Admiral, Zheng He, the book then turns to the search for sea routes to India and the Spice Isles by the Portuguese and Spanish. These sea voyages resulted in navigating the west coast of Africa and rounding of the Cape of Good Hope by the Portuguese to discover a sea route. Also due to a treaty between Spain and Portugal, it had been agreed that Spain would not use this route, so that Spanish explorers headed west to discover the West Indies (Caribbean, not India!), although the Portuguese discover Brazil (by accident, trying to sail around the Cape of Good Hope, but having sailed too far west to catch the current). The maps to illustrate these discoveries are sometimes dated far later, due to problems of survival, although this is not discussed.
There follows the voyages to Australia and New Zealand, exploration of the interior of Africa, and finally Arctic and Antarctic travels.
A useful introduction to the history of exploration, but really using maps only to illustrate that exploration.

[Grzegorz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wciągająco napisany 'podręcznik' o tym, jak przez wieki, krok po kroku, wiedza o świecie, rozumiana jako znajomość geografii Ziemi, była rozszerzana dzięki wyczynom śmiałków gotowych ryzykować życie swoje i swoich towarzyszy. Imponujące dokonania, ale pamiętajmy, że nie zawsze motywowane chęcią poznania, a często chęcią zdobycia, ze z reguły tragicznymi skutkami dla zdobywanych.

Duży plus dla autora za uwzględnienie, na tyle na ile się to dało, osób i odkrywców spoza europejskiego kręgu cywilizacyjnego, oraz zwrócenie uwagę na rolę kobiet-odkrywców. Te dwa trendy obserwuję ostatnio coraz częściej w tego typu literaturze. Cieszą mnie one bardzo, bo oddają sprawiedliwość kobietom często niesłusznie pominiętym i sprawiają, że historia nauki jest nie tylko prawdziwsza ale i jeszcze bardziej fascynująca.

Książka pomyślana jest jako atlas, czyli zbiór map. Pod tym względem trochę rozczarowuje, bo o ile map jest dużo i są piękne, to często są to mapy jedynie luźno związane z opisywaną wyprawą. No i wszystkie są tak zreprodukowane (konsekwencja formatu książki), że ciężko przyglądać się i podziwiać detale, a to w końcu w oglądaniu map połowa przyjemności.

[aredhela · Rating 5 out of 5]

W „Złotym atlasie” autor mojego ukochanego „Atlasu lądów niebyłych” skupia się na wyprawach i ekspedycjach, udanych lub nie, których skutkiem są odkrycia przedstawiane na mapach. Tym jest ta książka – zbiorem opowieści o znanych z historii podróżach, znanych nazwiskach, które utrwalone zostały na jako nazwy niezliczonych miejsc, o ludziach, którzy powodowani różnymi motywami stopniowo załatali wszystkie białe plamy na mapach świata. To także przegląd tych motywów i w jaki sposób historycznie się zmieniały – ludzie podejmowali wysiłek m.in. powodowani ciekawością, chęcią zysku, z powodów naukowych i strategicznych. Wszystko to ilustrowane najpiękniejszymi i często unikalnymi mapami, które stopniowo stają się coraz bardziej szczegółowe i odpowiadające rzeczywistemu obrazowi naszego globu.

Świetna pozycja dla ciekawych historii kartografii, w pigułce prezentująca największe odkrycia i wyczyny w dziedzinie geografii. Bardzo polecam, książka praktycznie dla każdego :)

[Artur Coelho · Rating 4 out of 5]

Um mergulho, não muito profundo, em dois deleites: mapas, e histórias de exploração. Explorar a riqueza estética dos mapas antigos é o primeiro objetivo deste livro profusamente ilustrado. Mapas do passado, que nos recordam o saber antigo, mas também a atração pelo desconhecido, e o impulso da descoberta. Isso fica patente na forma como o autor organizou o livro. Apesar de se focar na estética dos mapas, estrutura-o explorando de forma cronológica a história da exploração do planeta, desde a pré-história (há vestígios rupestres de mapeamento) ao grande final das explorações clássicas, com a exploração da antártida. Ler este livro é mergulhar numa lição de história e estética.

[Anjuna Harper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super cool! Beautiful images, lots of great stories, lots of good history. Thanks to Disney, I had absolutely no idea how dangerous the old world of exploring was, every story "and they came back 54 men down" like these guys literally were like 'were going to scale uncharted lands and if we get eaten by cannibals, die of disease or freeze to death, it's an occupational hazard." Envious, I am envious but after my one experience of being stuck on mt Fuji for 16 hours and having to sleep in a cloud and get rescued by mongolians, not sure it's as fun as it looks on paper.

[Gregorio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Muy cuidadosa presentación del afán explorador del ser humano relacionado con la mejora de la cartografía que servía de base para su prueba y continuación de ese impulso vital en ciertas sociedades. La elegancia del volumen es innegable y por eso le otorgo la máxima puntuación. En mi caso no acometí su lectura de forma continuada porque creo es para disfrutarlo en pequeñas dosis para comprender la enorme cantidad de mensajes contiene en su texto no muy extenso. Totalmente recomendado para las personas a quienes les interese conocer detalles en este campo específico.

[António Vasconcellos · Rating 4 out of 5]

"É fascinante olhar para trás, não só para os desafios enfrentados, mas também para a evolução da motivação dos exploradores ao longo dos séculos. Inicialmente movidos por desejos de impérios, comércio, lucro, proselitismo e ouro, a revolução científica trouxe uma nova curiosidade geográfica que pôs o dever de descoberta de conhecimento e de precisão de registo acima da aquisição da fortuna pessoal."

[Russell Court · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently recommended this book to someone who refused to believe that a book about Explorations could be worth reading. This is an amazing work. It is well written and, to use the cliche, a real page turner. So many of the great men of discovery were idiots or very lucky. Very few of them had a clear idea of what they were looking for or even where to look.

[Cláudia Pereira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Livro muito bonito e Interessante sobre exploradores de todo o mundo ao longo da história. Tem mapas especulares. Não estava muito bem escrito tornando-o um pouco confuso, mas também pode ser da tradução. Recomendo este livro a todas as pessoas que gostam de aventura e geografia. É também um bom livro de mesa

[Natalia Konieczna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dobra rzecz do poukładania sobie wiedzy o odkryciach geograficznych, jako zalążek tematu, jednak - siłą rzeczy - w tak niewielkim wydaniu nie uniknie się skrótów i zbyt wielu ogólników. Piękne graficznie wydanie, mnóstwo dawnych map, także zdjęć pojedynczych egzemplarzy.

[Wayne Farmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another fantastic book by Edward Brooke-Hitching, this time concentrating on the exploration side of maps. Full of interesting stories behind each journey of exploration and cartography - it makes you want to take off and find somewhere new.

[Rich Briers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting, informative and learned a lot that I did not know before. Could keep referring back to it.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative, beautifully illustrated with gorgeous old maps and art, well written. Great to read through, and to have on the shelf for reference.

[Philip Marsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series of books are full of beautiful maps and illustrations, but the information in the text is always interesting and informative.

[Dorota D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Przepiękne wydanie, będę wracać do przedstawionych map. Treść, z konieczności, nieco lakoniczna - to przekrój kilku tysięcy lat.

[Dan Sibbet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Encyclopedic review of great exploration and cartography for the general reader. Quality text supported by outstanding illustrations and maps, beautifully done.

[zack · Rating 5 out of 5]

really pretty and interesting, the illustrations are magnificent

[bettina · Rating 3 out of 5]

low-key only liked the Antarctica stuff

[Nikola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal book that covers the world's greatest explorations, what drove them, and how they influenced the world.
10/10

[Alanis · Rating 4 out of 5]

gorgeous, gorgeous maps and insightful commentary as well.

[Nadvornix · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly about well-known stories of explorers, not enough about maps for my taste.