Celebrated for their rarity, historical importance, and beauty, the maps of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries in the collection of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation provide an invaluable resource for the history of settlement in America. In the colonies, maps were essential in facilitating trade and travel, substantiating land claims, and settling boundary disputes. Today, knowing exactly what maps were owned and used during the period gives us a much richer understanding of the aspirations of early Americans.This large, handsome volume -- a carefully researched cultural investigation -- examines how maps were made and marketed, why people here and abroad purchased them, what they reveal about the emerging American nation, and why they were so significant to the individuals who owned them. Among the rare or unique examples included here are several maps that have never before been published. A must for map collectors and historians, this book will also be treasured by the millions who travel each year to Colonial Williamsburg to celebrate their American heritage.

The dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of one man's forty-year obsession to find a solution to the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day--"the longitude problem." Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that "the longitude problem" was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day-and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. Thousands of lives and the increasing fortunes of nations hung on a resolution. One man, John Harrison, in complete opposition to the scientific community, dared to imagine a mechanical solution-a clock that would keep precise time at sea, something no clock had ever been able to do on land. Longitude is the dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of Harrison's forty-year obsession with building his perfect timekeeper, known today as the chronometer. Full of heroism and chicanery, it is also a fascinating brief history of astronomy, navigation, and clockmaking, and opens a new window on our world.

This eleventh edition was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time and it is considered to be a landmark encyclopaedia for scholarship and literary style.

Much more than a travel narrative 360 Degrees Longitude: One Family’s Journey Around the World is a glimpse at what it means to be a “global citizen”—a progressively changing view of the world as seen through the eyes of an American family of four. After more than a decade of planning, John Higham and his wife September bid their high-tech jobs and suburban lives good-bye, packed up their home and set out with two children, ages eight and eleven, to travel around the world. In the course of the next 52 weeks they crossed 24 time zones, visited 28 countries and experienced a lifetime of adventures. Making their way across the world, the Highams discovered more than just different foods and cultures; they also learned such diverse things as a Chilean mall isn’t the best place to get your ears pierced, and that elephants appreciate flowers just as much as the next person. But most importantly, they learned about each other, and just how much a family can weather if they do it together. 360 Degrees Longitude employs Google’s wildly popular Google Earth as a compliment to the narrative. Using your computer you can spin the digital globe to join the adventure cycling through Europe, feeling the cold stare of a pride of lions in Africa, and breaking down in the Andes. Packed with photos, video and text, the online Google Earth companion adds a dimension not possible with mere paper and ink. Fly over the terrain of the Inca Trail or drill down to see the majesty of the Swiss Alps—without leaving the comfort of your chair.

Explains the concepts of latitude and longitude as well as the purpose of the compass rose on a map.

Laurel Blossom's Degrees of Latitude is a book-length poem, really, divided by section breaks to give air: these are short sections, for the most part, and breezy, this is a book-length narrative that covers family and personal history and moves seamlessly through time and space. “[This is] almost a lyric novel, so sweepingly re-imagined is the life it illuminates but it is as well an expedition into territory seldom explored in lyric mode. Blossom begins her journey on an icebreaker during the white nights of a polar north—cold as childhood—and then turns her gaze upon the uncharted regions of family history, secrecy and illusion, bravely and with uncommon self-knowledge, in deft and beautifully cadenced language that belies the arduousness of her task. This work crosses, formally and insightfully, the traditional borders of confession and memoir, and moves into the unknown, mapping what is visible as well as what has, until now, been hidden. I have been waiting a long time to read this book, and it is very much worth the wait.”

A discussion of the history of mapmaking and its relationship to navigation and the measurement of time.