Nicholas Crane

How much do we really know about the place we call 'home'? In this sweeping, timely book, Nicholas Crane tells the story of Britain. The British landscape has been continuously occupied by humans for 12,000 years, from the end of the Ice Age to the twenty-first century. It has been transformed from a European peninsula of glacier and tundra to an island of glittering cities and exquisite countryside. In this geographical journey through time, we discover the ancient relationship between people and place and the deep-rooted tensions between town and countryside. The twin drivers of landscape change - climate and population - have arguably wielded as much influence on our habitat as monarchs and politics. From tsunamis and farming to Roman debacles and industrial cataclysms, from henge to high-rise and hamlet to metropolis, this is a book about change and adaptation. AS Britain lurches from an exploitative past towards a more sustainable future, this is the story of our age.

The Making of the British Landscape

Alone and on foot, Nicholas Crane embarks on an extraordinary adventure: a seventeen-month journey along the chain of mountains which stretches across Europe from Cape Finisterre to Istanbul. With his umbrella for company, he tramsp across the Pyrenees, the Cévennes, the snowy Alps and through the forested Carpathians and Balkans, surviving storms, a drought and one-hundred-year-old maps. Along the way he meets shepherds, cheesemakers, gunslingers and a bad-tempered bear who won't take 'no' for an answer. His account is both an astonishing tale of endurance and a celebration of the people and landscapes that exist on the periphery of the modern world.

A Mountain Walk Across Europe

Clear Waters Rising

An illuminating glimpse into the life of Gerhard Mercator, the man who created the map, coined the term "atlas," and solved the dimensional riddle that plagued cosmographers for years, reveals a man who overcame many obstacles to attend one of Europe's top universities, only to be persecuted and imprisoned by the Inquisition and torn between Aristotelian science and religion. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

The Man Who Mapped the Planet

Mercator

The Man who Mapped the World

One word binds us all: geography. We are all geographers, human beings who care about the places we think of as 'home' - our habitat. And yet we have lost touch with the connection between our actions and the state of the planet that we all share. We need a new narrative that restores the connections between humanity and the Earth. We are being confronted by a daily barrage of geographical stories on climate change, geopolitics, population growth, migration, dwindling resources, polluted oceans and natural hazards. These are planetary concerns affecting all people and all places. They are challenges which can be addressed through geography. In this distillation of a lifetime's work, Nicholas Crane makes the compelling case that never has geography been so important. On this finite orb, with its battered habitat, sustained in dark space by a thin, life-giving atmosphere, we have reached a point in our collective geographical journey where knowledge is the best guarantor of the future.

A Brief Guide to the World

A Journey of Discovery Around Britain's Coastline

Coast - Our Island Story

An entertaining examination of England and the English. Crane walked the length of the country, along the Meridian, to discover what it means to be English, with his life on his back and his tongue in his cheek. Illustrated in colour.

A Walk Along England's Meridian

Two Degrees West

Latitude is a gloriously exciting tale of adventure and scientific discovery that has never been told before. Crane, the former president of the Royal Geographic Society, documents the remarkable expedition undertaken by a group of twelve European adventurer-scientists in the mid-eighteenth century. The team spent years in South America, scaling volcanoes and traversing jungles before they achieved their goal of establishing the exact shape of the Earth by measuring the length of 1 degree latitude at the equator. Their endeavors were not limited to this one achievement. Not only did their discovery open up the possibility for safe, accurate navigation across the seas, they also discovered rubber and quinine. With a narrative that reads like it was taken from the script of an adventure movie, Nicholas Crane brings to life a narrative that is a timely remind of how scientific discovery can change the world and our future. By knowing the shape of the earth we can create maps, survive the oceans, navigate the skies, and travel across the globe. Without latitude, maps and navigation wouldn’t be accurate, lives would have been lost, and exact locations of cities and rivers would never be known. After ten grueling years in search of a magic number, the survivors returned to Europe with their historical discovery and fueled the public’s interest in science. Twent-five years ago, Dava Sobel’s bestselling Longitude was a global publishing phenomenon, yet it told only one half of the story. With Latitude, this cornerstone piece of our shared history is now complete with this tale of a trip that changed the course of human civilization. Filled with raw excitement and danger, Latitude brings the challenges that faced these explorer-scientists to vivid life.

The True Story of the World's First Scientific Expedition

Latitude

The world-changing true story of the mission to discover the shape of the earth . . . ___________ 'An amazing story' Jeremy Vine 'This rollicking story of adventure and scientific exploration is as gripping as any novel . . . a book that sparkles with intelligence and wit' Alex Preston, author and journalist 'Crane has a rare knack for showing people things they really ought to see across space and time without them having to get out of their chair' Joe Smith, director of The Royal Geographic society _______ The year is 1735. Twelve unruly men board ships bound for South America. Their mission? To discover the true shape of the earth. They will be exposed to a wilderness of dangers none can imagine. The survivors won't return for ten years. _______ They knew the world wasn't a sphere. Either it stretched at the poles or it bulged at the equator. But which? They needed to know because accurate maps saved lives at sea and made money on land. But measuring the earth was so difficult that most thought it impossible. The world's first international team of scientists was sent to a continent of unmapped rainforests and ice-shrouded volcanoes where they attempted to measure the length on the ground of one degree of latitude. Beset by egos and disease, storms and earthquakes, mutiny and murder, they struggled for ten years to reach the single figure they sought. Latitude is an epic story of survival and science set in mountain camps and remote observatories. A breathtaking tale of courage in adversity, it is celebrated today as the first modern exploring expedition. _______ 'Latitude is a thrilling story of courage, survival and science. It's an extraordinary, visceral and vivid read' Geographical Magazine

The astonishing journey to discover the shape of the earth

A biography of the genius who mapped the world and for ever changed the face of the planet - by a bestselling author. Gerard Mercator (1512-1594) was born at the dawn of the Age of Discovery, when the world was beginning to be discovered and carved up by navigators, geographers and cartographers. Mercator was the greatest and most ingenious cartographer of them all: it was he who coined the word 'atlas' and solved the riddle of converting the three-dimensional globe into a two-dimensional map while retaining true compass bearings. It is Mercator's Projection that NASA are using today to map Mars. How did Mercator reconcile his religious beliefs with a science that would make Christian maps obsolete? How did a man whose imagination roamed continents endure imprisonment by the Inquisition? Crane brings this great man vividly to life, underlying it with colour illustrations of the maps themselves: maps that brought to a rapt public wonders as remarkable as today's cyber-world.

The Man who Mapped the Planet

Richard Crane

Journey to the Centre of the Earth

One word binds us all: geography. We are all geographers, human beings who care about the places we think of as 'home' - our habitat. And yet we have lost touch with the connection between our actions and the state of the planet that we all share. We need a new narrative that restores the connections between humanity and the Earth. We are being confronted by a daily barrage of geographical stories on climate change, geopolitics, population growth, migration, dwindling resources, polluted oceans and natural hazards. These are planetary concerns affecting all people and all places. They are challenges which can be addressed through geography. In this short but powerful book, Nicholas Crane makes the compelling case that never has geography been so important. On this finite orb, with its battered habitat, sustained in dark space by a thin, life-giving atmosphere, we have reached a point in our collective geographical journey where knowledge is the best guarantor of the future. [NOTE: published in hardback as YOU ARE HERE]

Alone - though he was just married - and on foot, Nicholas Crane embarked on an extraordinary adventure: a seventeen-month journey along the chain of mountains which stretches across Europe from Cape Finisterre to Istanbul. His aim was to explore Europe's last mountain wilderness and to meet the people who live on the periphery of the modern world.

Nicholas Crane

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