Search results for ""Author Charles W. J. Withers""
Harvard University Press Zero Degrees: Geographies of the Prime Meridian
Space and time on earth are regulated by the prime meridian, 0°, which is, by convention, based at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. But the meridian’s location in southeast London is not a simple legacy of Britain’s imperial past. Before the nineteenth century, more than twenty-five different prime meridians were in use around the world, including Paris, Beijing, Greenwich, Washington, and the location traditional in Europe since Ptolemy, the Canary Islands. Charles Withers explains how the choice of Greenwich to mark 0° longitude solved complex problems of global measurement that had engaged geographers, astronomers, and mariners since ancient times.Withers guides readers through the navigation and astronomy associated with diverse meridians and explains the problems that these cartographic lines both solved and created. He shows that as science and commerce became more global and as railway and telegraph networks tied the world closer together, the multiplicity of prime meridians led to ever greater confusion in the coordination of time and the geographical division of space. After a series of international scientific meetings, notably the 1884 International Meridian Conference in Washington, DC, Greenwich emerged as the most pragmatic choice for a global prime meridian, though not unanimously or without acrimony. Even after 1884, other prime meridians remained in use for decades.As Zero Degrees shows, geographies of the prime meridian are a testament to the power of maps, the challenges of accurate measurement on a global scale, and the role of scientific authority in creating the modern world.
£31.46
Birlinn General A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, Circa 1695: A Late Voyage to St Kilda
Written before the Jacobite rebellions irrevocably changed the face of Highland society, Martin Martin's A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland and A Late Voyage to St Kilda paint a fascinating picture of the Hebrides at a crucial point in their history. Long recognised as some of the most significant pieces of travel writing ever produced about Scotland (Boswell and Johnson found them indispensable on their famous tour of 1773), these texts offer a mine of information on the customs, traditions and way of life in the country's remote island communities. Sir Donald Monro, High Dean of the Isles, wrote his Description of the Western Islands of Scotland in 1549. He presents a fascinating record of a pastoral visit to islands still coping with the turbulent period after the fall of the Lord of the Isles.
£15.17
Birlinn General Majestic River: Mungo Park and the Exploration of the Niger
One of the greatest stories of world exploration ever told. By the late eighteenth century, the river Niger was a 2,000-year-old two-part geographical problem. Solving it would advance European knowledge of Africa, provide a route to commercial opportunity and help eradicate the evil of slavery. Mungo Park achieved lasting fame in 1796 by solving the first part of the Niger problem – which way did the river run? Park died in 1806, in circumstances which are still uncertain, in failing to solve the second – where did the Niger end? Numerous expeditions explored the river in the decades following Park’s death, but not until 1830 was its final course revealed following in-the-field exploration. By then, however, the Niger problem had been solved by ‘armchair geographers’ who had never even visited Africa. Majestic River celebrates Mungo Park's achievements and illuminates his rich afterlife – how and why he was commemorated long after his death. It is also the thrilling story of the many expeditions that sought to determine the Niger’s course and the facts of Park’s disappearance, as well as a biography of the Niger itself as the river slowly took shape in the European imagination. Shortlisted for the Saltire Society History Book of the Year Award
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press Geographies of Nineteenth-Century Science
In "Geographies of Nineteenth-Century Science", David N. Livingstone and Charles W. J. Withers gather essays that deftly navigate the spaces of science in this significant period and reveal how each is embedded in wider systems of meaning, authority, and identity. Chapters from a distinguished range of contributors explore the places of creation, the paths of knowledge transmission and reception, and the import of exchange networks at various scales. Studies range from the inspection of the places of London science, which show how different scientific sites operated different moral and epistemic economies, to the scrutiny of the ways in which the museum space of the Smithsonian Institution and the expansive space of the American West produced science and framed geographical understanding. This volume makes clear that the science of this era varied in its constitution and reputation in relation to place and personnel, in its nature by virtue of its different epistemic practices, in its audiences, and in the ways in which it was put to work.
£60.00
Johns Hopkins University Press Geographies of Knowledge: Science, Scale, and Spatiality in the Nineteenth Century
A path-breaking exploration of how space, place, and scale influenced the production and circulation of scientific knowledge in the nineteenth century.Over the past twenty years, scholars have increasingly questioned not just historical presumptions about the putative rise of modern science during the long nineteenth century but also the geographical contexts for and variability of science during the era. In Geographies of Knowledge, an internationally distinguished array of historians and geographers examine the spatialization of science in the period, tracing the ways in which scale and space are crucial to understanding the production, dissemination, and reception of scientific knowledge in the nineteenth century.Engaging with and extending the influential work of David Livingstone and others on science's spatial dimensions, the book touches on themes of empire, gender, religion, Darwinism, and much more. In exploring the practice of science across four continents, these essays illuminate the importance of geographical perspectives to the study of science and knowledge, and how these ideas made and contested locally could travel the globe.Dealing with everything from the local spaces of the Surrey countryside to the global negotiations that proposed a single prime meridian, from imperial knowledge creation and exploration in Burma, India, and Africa to studies of metropolitan scientific-cum-theological tussles in Belfast and in Confederate America, Geographies of Knowledge outlines an interdisciplinary agenda for the study of science as geographically situated sets of practices in the era of its modern disciplinary construction. More than that, it outlines new possibilities for all those interested in knowledge's spatial characteristics in other periods. Contributors: John A. Agnew, Vinita Damodaran, Diarmid A. Finnegan, Nuala C. Johnson, Dane Kennedy, Robert J. Mayhew, Mark Noll, Ronald L. Numbers, Nicolaas Rupke, Yvonne Sherratt, Charles W. J. Withers
£47.50
Birlinn General Scotland: Mapping the Nation
Winner of the Saltire Society Research Book of the Year Whilst documents and other written material are obvious resources that help shape our view of the past, maps too can say much about a nation's history. This is the first book to take maps seriously as a form of history, from the earliest representations of Scotland by Ptolemy in the second century AD to the most recent form of Scotland's mapping and geographical representation in GIS, satellite imagery and SATNAV. Compiled by three experts who have spent their lives working with maps, Scotland: Mapping the Nation offers a fascinating and thought-provoking perspective on Scottish history which is beautifully illustrated with complete facsimiles and details of hundreds of the most significant manuscript and printed maps from the National Library of Scotland and other institutions, including those by Timothy Pont, Joan Blaeu and William Roy, amongst many others.
£35.00
The University of Chicago Press Geography and Enlightenment
Explores both the Enlightenment as a geographical phenomenon and the place of geography in the Enlightenment. From disciplinary and topical perspectives, contributors consider the many ways in which the world of the long 18th century was brought to view and shaped through map and text, exploration and argument, within and across spatial and intellectual borders. The first set of chapters charts the intellectual and geographical contexts in which Enlightenment ideas began to form, including both the sites in which knowledge was created and discussed and the different means used to investigate the globe. Explorations of maps created during this period show how these new ways of representing the world and its peoples influenced conceptions of the nature and progress of human societies, while studies of the travels of people and ideas reveal the influence of far-flung places on Enlightenment science and scientific credibility. The final set of chapters emphasizes the role of particular local contexts in Enlightenment thought.
£40.00
The University of Chicago Press Travels into Print: Exploration, Writing, and Publishing with John Murray, 1773-1859
In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, books of travel and exploration were much more than simply the printed experiences of intrepid authors. They were works of both artistry and industry - products of the complex, and often contested, relationships between authors and editors, publishers and printers. These books captivated the reading public and played a vital role in creating new geographical truths. In that age of global wonder and of expanding empires, there was no publisher more renowned for its travel books than the House of John Murray. Drawing on detailed examination of the John Murray Archive of manuscripts, images, and the firm's correspondence with its many authors - a list that included such illustrious explorers and scientists as Charles Darwin and Charles Lyell, and literary giants like Jane Austen, Byron, and Sir Walter Scott - Travels into Print considers how journeys of exploration became published accounts and how travelers sought to demonstrate the faithfulness of their written testimony and to secure their personal credibility. This fascinating study in historical geography and book history takes modern readers on a journey into the nature of exploration, the production of authority in published travel narratives, and the creation of geographical authorship - a journey bound together by the unifying force of a world-leading publisher.
£39.00
