Download or read book The Portolan written by Lauren Hall Ruddell and published by Planet Goat Press. This book was released on 2021-02-11 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the mid-1500s, the ‘witch craze’ was beginning to sweep across Europe. Hundreds of trials had already been conducted and hundreds of people executed for witchcraft in Germany, England, and Scotland. Would Ireland soon succumb? Gale Butler begins her life journey as the pampered and well-educated daughter of a prosperous Galway merchant. She is a budding cartographer and seafarer, joined in her early sailing adventures by her best friend, the future pirate queen Granuaile (Grace/Grainne) O’Malley. Gale embarks on a series of journeys, only some of which are voluntary. She finds help and hindrance in unexpected ways and places. A druidic arts mentor, a mystical horse, and a troubled but honest and handsome man at arms of the O’Flaherty clan assist her. She firmly believes she will return to her Galway family after an unwanted marriage has been averted, but it is not to be. During her flight from home, a geas is laid upon her by a woman of the Sidhe. Enemies abound and unseen evil dogs her heels, yet despite the plots and perils at hand, Gale meets her true soul mate and begins to build life-long friendships with some of the premier intellects and inventors of the age. Yet all of these happenings must always take a back seat to the geas, the prevention of witch persecutions in Ireland. Set in Western Ireland, the fast-paced, authentic tale is a mix of historical fact, plausible fiction, and a touch of Celtic mysticism. Mists of Avalon meets Outlander in this story of bold women who push against society's boundaries of religion, politics, and gender.
Download or read book The Enigma of the Origin of Portolan Charts written by Roel Nicolai and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-05-30 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sudden appearance of portolan charts, realistic nautical charts of the Mediterranean and Black Sea, at the end of the thirteenth century is one of the most significant occurrences in the history of cartography. Using geodetic and statistical analysis techniques these charts are shown to be mosaics of partial charts that are considerably more accurate than has been assumed. Their accuracy exceeds medieval mapping capabilities. These sub-charts show a remarkably good agreement with the Mercator map projection. It is demonstrated that this map projection can only have been an intentional feature of the charts’ construction. Through geodetic analysis the author eliminates the possibility that the charts are original products of a medieval Mediterranean nautical culture, which until now they have been widely believed to be.
Download or read book Portolan Charts Their Origin and Characteristics written by Edward Luther Stevenson and published by . This book was released on 1911 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Routledge Revivals Medieval Italy 2004 written by Christopher Kleinhenz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 1952 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 2004, Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia provides an introduction to the many and diverse facets of Italian civilization from the late Roman empire to the end of the fourteenth century. It presents in two volumes articles on a wide range of topics including history, literature, art, music, urban development, commerce and economics, social and political institutions, religion and hagiography, philosophy and science. This illustrated, A-Z reference is a cross-disciplinary resource and will be of key interest not only to students and scholars of history but also to those studying a range of subjects, as well as the general reader.
Download or read book Rhumb Lines and Map Wars written by Mark Monmonier and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-11-15 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Rhumb Lines and Map Wars, Mark Monmonier offers an insightful, richly illustrated account of the controversies surrounding Flemish cartographer Gerard Mercator's legacy. He takes us back to 1569, when Mercator announced a clever method of portraying the earth on a flat surface, creating the first projection to take into account the earth's roundness. As Monmonier shows, mariners benefited most from Mercator's projection, which allowed for easy navigation of the high seas with rhumb lines—clear-cut routes with a constant compass bearing—for true direction. But the projection's popularity among nineteenth-century sailors led to its overuse—often in inappropriate, non-navigational ways—for wall maps, world atlases, and geopolitical propaganda. Because it distorts the proportionate size of countries, the Mercator map was criticized for inflating Europe and North America in a promotion of colonialism. In 1974, German historian Arno Peters proffered his own map, on which countries were ostensibly drawn in true proportion to one another. In the ensuing "map wars" of the 1970s and 1980s, these dueling projections vied for public support—with varying degrees of success. Widely acclaimed for his accessible, intelligent books on maps and mapping, Monmonier here examines the uses and limitations of one of cartography's most significant innovations. With informed skepticism, he offers insightful interpretations of why well-intentioned clerics and development advocates rallied around the Peters projection, which flagrantly distorted the shape of Third World nations; why journalists covering the controversy ignored alternative world maps and other key issues; and how a few postmodern writers defended the Peters worldview with a self-serving overstatement of the power of maps. Rhumb Lines and Map Wars is vintage Monmonier: historically rich, beautifully written, and fully engaged with the issues of our time.
Download or read book Pragmatism and the Forms of Sense written by Robert E. Innis and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making sense of the world around us is a process involving both semiotic and material mediation&—the use of signs and sign systems (preeminently language) and various kinds of tools (technics). As we use them, we experience them subjectively as extensions of our bodily selves and objectively as instruments for accessing the world with which we interact. Emphasizing this bipolar nature of language and technics, understood as intertwined &"forms of sense,&" Robert Innis studies the multiple ways in which they are rooted in and transform human perceptual structures in both their individual and social dimensions. The book foregrounds and is organized around the notion of &"semiotic embodiment.&" Language and technics are viewed as &"probes&" upon which we rely, in which we are embodied, and that themselves embody and structure our primary modes of encountering the world. While making an important substantive contribution to present debates about the &"biasing&" of perception by language and technics, Innis also seeks to provide a methodological model of how complementary analytical resources from American pragmatist and various European traditions can be deployed fruitfully in the pursuit of new insights into the phenomenon of meaning-making.
Download or read book The Later Middle Ages written by Isabella Lazzarini and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-29 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all the sub-periods in which European medieval history has been divided over time, the later middle ages is possibly the one on which the burden of past and current grand narratives weighs the most. Its chronological and geopolitical boundaries are shaped by a heavy narrative of decline or transition, and consequently this period is often interpreted through the lenses of previous or following developments, becoming in turn the tail-end of the 'feudal', 'communal', 'imperial versus papal' era or the announcement of modernity. The Later Middle Ages addresses the urgent need to revise and rewrite the story of this period, forging new critical and technical vocabularies not derived from the study of other periods. By adopting a conscious approach towards temporal and spatial variety, and by breaking the traditional and unitary narrative of decline and transition into one of many changes and continuities, it charts the principal developments of late medieval Europe while opening up to different political cultures and societies, throwing new light on older concepts, and revealing analogies and differences with other geopolitical contexts. Including maps, illustrations, a detailed chronology and a rich range of reading suggestions, The Later Middle Ages aims at providing a first introduction to a very complex, dynamic, and fascinating period for Europe and beyond.
Download or read book Travellers from Europe in the Ottoman and Safavid Empires 16th 17th Centuries written by Sonja Brentjes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-07-15 with total page 559 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of Sonja Brentjes's articles deals with travels, encounters and the exchange of knowledge in the Mediterranean and Western Asia during the 16th and 17th centuries, focusing on three historiographical concerns. The first is how we should understand the relationship between Christian and Muslim societies, in the period between the translations from Arabic into Latin (10th - 13th centuries) and before the Napoleonic invasion of Ottoman Egypt (1798). The second concern is the "Western" discourse about the decline or even disappearance of the sciences in late medieval and early modern Islamic societies and, third, the construction of Western Asian natures and cultures in Catholic and Protestant books, maps and pictures. The articles discuss institutional and personal relationships, describe how Catholic or Protestant travellers learned about and accessed Muslim scholarly literature, and uncover contradictory modes of reporting, evaluating or eradicating the visited cultures and their knowledge.
Download or read book The World Map 1300 1492 written by Evelyn Edson and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2007-07-15 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the development of world maps during the later medieval period in the centuries leading up to Columbus’s journey. In the two centuries before Columbus, mapmaking was transformed. The World Map, 1300–1492 investigates this important, transitional period of mapmaking. Beginning with a 1436 atlas of ten maps produced by Venetian Andrea Bianco, Evelyn Edson uses maps of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to examine how the discoveries of missionaries and merchants affected the content and configuration of world maps. She finds that both the makers and users of maps struggled with changes brought about by technological innovation?the compass, quadrant, and astrolabe?rediscovery of classical mapmaking approaches, and increased travel. To reconcile the tensions between the conservative and progressive worldviews, mapmakers used a careful blend of the old and the new to depict a world that was changing?and growing?before their eyes. This engaging and informative study reveals how the ingenuity, creativity, and adaptability of these craftsmen helped pave the way for an age of discovery. “A comprehensive and complex picture of the changing face of medieval geography. With the mastery of a formidable palette of historiographic knowledge and well-reasoned discussions of the sources, The World Map, 1300–1492 will certainly remain an important work to consult for both medieval and early modern scholars for many years to come.” —Ian J. Aebel, Terrae Incognitae
Download or read book When Maps Become the World written by Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-06-29 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Map making and, ultimately, map thinking is ubiquitous across literature, cosmology, mathematics, psychology, and genetics. We partition, summarize, organize, and clarify our world via spatialized representations. Our maps and, more generally, our representations seduce and persuade; they build and destroy. They are the ultimate record of empires and of our evolving comprehension of our world. This book is about the promises and perils of map thinking. Maps are purpose-driven abstractions, discarding detail to highlight only particular features of a territory. By preserving certain features at the expense of others, they can be used to reinforce a privileged position. When Maps Become the World shows us how the scientific theories, models, and concepts we use to intervene in the world function as maps, and explores the consequences of this, both good and bad. We increasingly understand the world around us in terms of models, to the extent that we often take the models for reality. Winther explains how in time, our historical representations in science, in cartography, and in our stories about ourselves replace individual memories and become dominant social narratives—they become reality, and they can remake the world.
Download or read book Reading the Middle Ages Volume II written by Barbara H. Rosenwein and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanning the period from c.900 to c.1500 and containing primary source material from the European, Byzantine, and Islamic worlds, Barbara H. Rosenwein's Reading the Middle Ages, Second Edition once again brings the Middle Ages to life. Building on the strengths of the first edition, this volume contains 24 new readings, including 10 translations commissioned especially for this book, and a stunning new 10-plate color insert entitled "Containing the Holy" that brings together materials from the Western, Byzantine, and Islamic religious traditions. Ancillary materials, including study questions, can be found on the History Matters website (www.utphistorymatters.com).
Download or read book Reading the Middle Ages written by Barbara H. Rosenwein and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2013-11-18 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering over one thousand years of history and containing primary source material from the European, Byzantine, and Islamic worlds, Barbara H. Rosenwein's Reading the Middle Ages, Second Edition once again brings the Middle Ages to life. Building on the strengths of the first edition, the second edition contains 40 new readings, including 13 translations commissioned especially for this book, and a stunning new 10-plate color insert entitled "Containing the Holy" that brings together materials from the Western, Byzantine, and Islamic religious traditions. Ancillary materials, including study questions, can be found on the History Matters website (www.utphistorymatters.com).
Download or read book Navigations written by Malyn Newitt and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2023-06-17 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A critical reassessment of world-shaping Portuguese voyages of discovery that places these quests in historical context. The lasting impact of historic Portuguese voyages of discovery is unquestionable. The slave trade, the diaspora of the Sephardic Jews, and the intercontinental spread of plants and animals all make clear these voyages’ long-term global significance. Navigations reexamines these Portuguese quests by placing them in their medieval and Renaissance settings. It shows how these voyages grew out of a crusading ethos, as well as long-distance trade with Asia and Africa and developments in map-making and ship design. Malyn Newitt also narrates these voyages of discovery in the framework of Portuguese politics, describing the role of the Portuguese ruling dynasty—including its female members—in the flowering of the Portuguese Renaissance, the creation of the Renaissance state with its distinctive ideology, and in the cultural changes that took place within a wider European context.
Download or read book Old Decorative Maps and Charts written by Arthur Lee Humphreys and published by London : Halton & Truscott Smith. This book was released on 1926 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book JERUSALEM written by Vinogradov A. G. and published by WP IPGEB. This book was released on with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1859, the famous German scientist, author of the works “History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages” and “History of the City of Athens in the Middle Ages” Ferdinand Gregorovius wrote: “Three cities shine in the history of mankind with a splendor of world significance; Jerusalem, Athens and Rome. All three cities in the process of world life are contributing and mutually influencing factors of human culture. Jerusalem, the main city of a small Jewish people, not at all powerful, was the center of that mysterious monotheistic state from which Christianity emerged, and thus it is the metropolis of world religion. Long after its fall, it again receives a world-historical significance, along with Rome and in connection with it. In ancient times, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, the Jewish people were scattered across the face of the earth, the meaning of the holy city passed to Christian Rome; but in the eleventh century Jerusalem rises again, and in the period of the crusades is the goal of the aspirations of the Christian pilgrims and the subject of the great popular struggle between Europe and Asia. And only then the history of Jerusalem ends with the ideas of which it was a symbol. "
Download or read book Quelvyn s Rede written by Nathan Pyles and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2007-12-11 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does a person truly possess free-will, or is their life set by fate. And if it is set by fate, how is a person to respond, how must they act? Does it even matter? These are the struggles facing Dureyin as he hides from his past. Quelvyn's Rede is the tale of a Chosen Race that is Broken by Evil, that Battles Evil and ultimately Banishes Evil. The fate of this race is connected to an ancient prophesy and a talisman of great power. It begins with Dureyin, a rebel knight, who is a son of this race and the heir of a ruined kingdom destroyed long ago. He joins Aemyn, an orphan, who has been given guardianship of a Torc necklace, hidden from the ages. A beautiful Færie Princess becomes desperate by the loss of her betrothed upon the field of battle. A Druid's prophecy connects the destinies of the knight, orphan and princess as they strive against unconquerable foes and their own inner destiny. Quelvyn's Rede is a tale of the tension between Good and Evil with monsters, battles and adventure.
Download or read book The Roads of Heaven Trilogy written by Melissa Scott and published by Crossroad Press. This book was released on 2016-05-09 with total page 1013 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Five-Twelfths of Heaven - Book I of The Roads of Heaven In a space-faring civilization where a single woman is increasingly disenfranchised, the star pilot Silence Leigh is defrauded from her inheritance by a greedy competitor. Forced to ally with two men, Silence is dragged into a deadly political struggle, and is tantalized by the hints of the legendary Earth, as well as the dread and the glory of Magi's power. Her dreams of having her own ship and of escape from the Hegemony's oppressions take on new direction and focus when she joins the crew of "The Sun-Treader." Silence in Solitude - Book II of The Roads of Heaven In Five-Twelfths of Heaven, Silence Leigh discovered that she was not only unusual, as a female pilot, but that impossible thing, a female magus. Her unique abilities make her the only person capable of reaching Earth, humanity's original home, now sealed behind a mysterious barrier — but first she must learn to use her new-found talents. As the Hegemon's men close in on her and her husbands and teacher, she must make a dangerous bargain: undertake an impossible rescue mission in exchange for a vital map. If she succeeds, she may be able to save Earth. If she fails… The Empress of Earth - Book III of The Roads of Heaven Following "Five-Twelfths of Heaven" and "Silence in Solitude", this is the third and concluding novel in the Silence Leigh series. Silence Leigh now faces the ultimate test of her skills as a pilot and of her powers as a sage. Silence has finally wangled a deal with the Hegemony to use their gear to help them find the lost star roads to Earth. This comes at a price, though, as the credit for this will go to the leader of the Hegemony's family, so that one of his relatives can inherit his position, given that he has no children. The roads are not lost by accident, there is an active group of planets trying to block access to Earth, setting up a final conflict.
