08/09/2024

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This book was first published in 1897. It’s a short work, but it encompasses a vast subject—nothing less than determining the detailed geographical plan of our entire world! In the process, Jacobs feeds us dates and names and events and places and maps in a dense stream. It’s a bit like drinking from a fire hose, but see it through, and the reader (or listener) will acquire a surprisingly complete overview of world history as well as geography. It’s well worth absorbing, even by those not so geographically inclined, if only as a source for winning endless bar bets. Beginning in ancient times, the author identifies three main forces that have contributed to our present understanding: wars of conquest, competition for trade, and (eventually) pure scientific curiosity. The Egyptians, Phoenicians, early Greeks, Babylonians, and many other Mediterranean peoples contributed, often unwillingly, the streams of knowledge that Ptolemy of Alexandria summed up in the great Ptolemaei Orbis (ca.150 AD), the first “real” map of the whole known world. The evolution of world maps to incorporate (and sometime conceal) new discoveries is a key theme of this fascinating work. (Summary by Steven Seitel)