- ISBN13: 9781416535317
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
The Fourth Part of the World is an epic adventure story about the creation of the map that introduced Europe to America and ushered in the New World.Amazon.com Review
Amazon Exclusive: Simon Winchester Reviews The Fourth Part of the World
Simon Winchester studied geology at Oxford and later became an award-winning journalist, and author of more than a dozen books. He has written for The Guardian, Smithsonian Magazine… More >>
Tags: adventure story, amazon, America, dozen books, earth, Ends, ends of the earth, Epic, Europe, Fourth, Gave, geology, guardian, journalist, map, name, Oxford, part, Race, remainder mark, simon winchester, smithsonian magazine, Story, World
#1 by Frank Fisher on February 6, 2010 - 4:03 am
ordered 2 books, said free shipping, did the one click buy as I have so many times before, when I was invoiced it reflected a much higher price, then would not let me cancel the order to re order reflecting the correct price. I have ordered hundreds of items but these were the last two from me.
Rating: 1 / 5
#2 by Avid Reader on February 6, 2010 - 6:41 am
Simply a well researched treatise on the origin of the term “America”. A book that should be retained and passed onto future generations.
Rating: 5 / 5
#3 by Midwest Book Review on February 6, 2010 - 9:35 am
The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map That Gave America Its Name tells of a great map drawn in 1507 that was bought in 2003 by the Library of Congress for, $10 million – the highest price ever paid for a historical document. The map named America and was the first to show the New World as surrounded by water, separate from Asia – but its value lies in more than its depictions. Its history covers world events and crosses continents in an epic survey key for both history and general-interest collections.
Rating: 5 / 5
#4 by Bruce Trinque on February 6, 2010 - 10:11 am
In “The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map That Gave America Its Name” Toby Lester uses an obscure map published in 1507 as a springboard to tell a fascinating tale of Medieval maps and exploration. The quest of Medieval Europe to define the world through an adequate map is closely aligned to the quest to explore that world first-hand. Maps and exploration fed one another: new discoveries revising old maps, maps encouraging explorers to look a little harder. Lester shows how various threads of knowledge — ancient sources such as Ptolemy, philosophical excercises in what the world should look be to reflect religious understanding, marine charts showing coastlines from decades and centuries of practical experience, and reports fresh from wandering explorers — came together to make possible the first maps to approximate a modern understanding of what the world really looked like.
Rating: 5 / 5
#5 by lifetime learner on February 6, 2010 - 10:16 am
This is my favorite book of the year. I am giving it to friends and family for Christmas. It is the story of the map that named America — a remarkable map that is now the central feature in the lobby of the Library of Congress in Washington. But, told engagingly by Toby Lester, it is also a story of intrigue, deception, sex, and bribery — the story of competition among early explorers and their patrons to find and document ( and mis-document) new worlds. A remarkable achievement.
Rating: 5 / 5