(George Philip 2009, co-author Andrew Robinson)

 

“A vivid account of great courage and endeavour on the grandest scale” - Where and When

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First published as the companion book to a six-part PBS television documentary series, The Shape of the World shows how scientists and explorers throughout the centuries disproved prevailing myths regarding the Earth's shape and geography.

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For thousands of years, the shape of the world and its islands, continents and oceans was a matter of speculation for geographers and mystics. Some thought the world was flat, or rested on the head of a serpent; others that it was a perfect sphere. Its true shape remained unseen by human eyes until Christmas 1968, when Apollo 8 left the earth's gravity to circumnavigate the moon.

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From the first crude maps to Apollo, The Shape of the World tells a story of courage and endeavour on the grandest scale: of explorers such as Marco Polo, sailors like Columbus and Magellan and soldiers like Everest. It is a history of map-making and scientific invention drawn from many ages and countries... an epic of ingenuity, revealing how the discoveries of craftsmen and explorers were closely interlinked.

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The Shape of the World also includes some 150 colour maps, photographs and illustrations, including a colour photograph taken from Apollo 8.