Please note: By accepting the licence you are agreeing to the terms and conditions listed in the End User Licence Agreement (EULA). When World War I broke out, maps became powerful weapons. A detailed trench map of the front line allowed for artillery bombardments to be carried out without practice shots, retaining the element of surprise. After the war, aerial photography spread to civilian use and in 1921 the Fairchild Aerial Map of Manhattan ushered maps into pop culture consciousness. New York City entrepreneur Sherman Fairchild, who had been developing new aerial photography techniques for World War I, introduced an aerial camera that automatically snapped photos and turned the roll of film at timed intervals.

THE ANCIENT WORLD ANCIENT HISTORY STRETCHES FROM WHEN THE FIRST CITIES DEVELOPED AROUND 3000 BCE TO THE FALL OF POWERS SUCH AS THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND HAN CHINA IN THE FIRST CENTURIES CE. Milner worries, though, that GPS is weakening something fundamental in ourselves, corroding not just our orientation skills, but how well we remember the details of the world around us. A 2008 study in Japan found that people who used a GPS to navigate a city developed a shakier grasp of the terrain than those who consulted a paper map or those who learned the route via direct experience. Similarly, a 2008 Cornell study found that “GPS eliminates much of the need to pay attention.” Some map historians agree that a subtle change is at hand. Short tells me that he likes the convenience of GPS-brokered directions—“but what I do lose is the sense of how things hang together.” Maps weren’t just symbols of power: They conferred power. With a good map, a military had an advantage in battle, a king knew how much land could be taxed. Western maps showing Africa’s interior as empty—the mapmakers had little to go on—gave empires dreamy visions of claiming Africa for themselves: All that empty space seemed, to them, ripe for the taking. Maps helped propel the depredations of colonialism, as Simon Garfield argues in On the Map.Ptolemy gathered documents detailing the locations of towns, and he augmented that information with the tales of travelers. By the time he was done, he had devised a system of lines of latitude and longitude, and plotted some 10,000 locations—from Britain to Europe, Asia and North Africa. Ptolemy even invented ways to flatten the planet (like most Greeks and Romans, he knew the Earth was round) onto a two-dimensional map. What did he call his new technique? “Geography.” The Greeks were the first known culture to apply a scientific approach to measuring and mapping the world. The philosopher Pythagorus theorized as early as the 6th century B.C. that the Earth was round. And by 200 B.C., the scholar Eratosthenes compared the angles of shadows cast simultaneously in two distant cities to accurately estimate the planet’s circumference within 1,000 miles. For readers of this portal, it includes masses of maritime history from ancient times until the present day. It proves yet again that the history of the world is the history of the sea. Says slavery "contributed" to the Industrial Revolution. Actually, the Industrial Revolution was /founded/ on slavery: chattel slavery and wage-slavery. p. 212. Tells us slaves were emancipated after the U.S. Civil War--but doesn't say how little changed, after the end of Reconstruction, under the sharecropping system, Jim Crow, and a Southerner-dominated Supreme Court. p. 257.

Ancient sailors navigated the seas by keeping in sight of land and observing the sun and stars. If clouds rolled in, they pulled in their sails and waited for better visibility.Indeed, everyday people were realizing that a map was an act of persuasion, a visual rhetoric. In 1553, gentry in Surrey, England, drew a map of the town’s central fields, to prove these were common lands—and that villagers thus should be allowed to graze animals there. The map, they wrote, would allow for “the more playne manifest and direct understondying” of the situation. Maps, says Rose Mitchell, a map archivist at the National Archives of the U.K., were “used to settle arguments.” Meanwhile, educated people began collecting maps and displaying them “to show off how knowledgeable they were,” she adds. Even if you couldn’t read the words on a map from a foreign country, you could generally understand it, and even navigate by it. The persuasive power of a map was its glanceability. It was data made visual. This stunning visual reference book starts with the evolution and migration of our oldest ancestors out of Africa. You can then look up maps about the Greece and Persian War, the Mongol Conquests, Medieval Europe's trade routes, and the rise of the Ottomans. There are maps about the colonisation of North America, the scientific revolution, Napoleon's advances, and Britain's control of India. There's more in later centuries, such as the Age of Imperialism, the American Civil War, industrialised Europe and the transformation of Japan. This stunning history book for adults starts with the evolution and migration of our oldest ancestors out of Africa. You can then look up maps about the Greece and Persian War, the Mongol Conquests, Medieval Europe’s trade routes, and the rise of the Ottomans. Explore maps about the colonisation of North America, the scientific revolution, Napoleon’s advances, and Britain’s control of India. Then uncover the history of later centuries, such as the Age of Imperialism, the American Civil War, industrialised Europe and the transformation of Japan. Is it possible that today’s global positioning systems and smartphones are affecting our basic ability to navigate? Will technology alter forever how we get around?

PREHISTORY BEFORE WRITTEN RECORDS BEGAN IN AROUND 3000 BCE, THE STORY OF HUMANS WAS RECORDED FOR MILLIONS OF YEARS BY THE FOSSILS AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL TRACES OUR ANCESTORS LEFT BEHIND. Learn how something like the printing press can define a time, or how the Allies in Europe could defeat the Nazis. There is so much to read about in this remarkable history book, and just as much to look at. This history book reaching across millennia gives you a broad view of the pivotal events in our past. With 140 maps, complimented with pictures, info boxes, and timelines, there's so much to enjoy and learn about. You will gain a strong understanding of some of the forces and movements across continents that have shaped our world. They go, wow, look at that!” Brotton says. It’s the same perspective as the people who held that Babylonian clay tablet nearly three millennia ago: using a map to figure out where, exactly, we stand.Maps don’t just show us where to go, but also where we’ve been. If you’re interested in finding out more about the biggest events in world history, then this book all about history of the world is perfect for you! Maps don't just show us where to go, but also where we've been. If you're interested in finding out more about the biggest events in world history, then this book all about history of the world is perfect for you!

Maps which combine beautiful illustration with satellite relief data for unrivalled accuracy and detail Environment Digimap includes land cover data for 1997, 2000 and 2007 from the Centre of Ecology and Hydrology. Released in 2005, Google Earth provided an interactive, 3D image of the globe formed from millions of overlapping satellite photographs overlaid on a 3D digital earth. Close-up 3D details are added from aerial images that capture the depth of buildings and terrain. A modern reproduction of the Hereford Mappa Mundi. Europe is in the lower left quadrant. Universal History Archive // Getty ImagesOf course you could take a semester to dive deep into the transitions from the stone age to the iron age to the industrial revolution to the space age, but the depth that is offered here on so many of these distinctive historic periods seems just about right for someone interested in brushing up or clarifying their knowledge.