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Title details for Four Points of the Compass by Jerry Brotton - Wait list

Four Points of the Compass

The Unexpected History of Direction

by Jerry Brotton
Liam Garrigan
Audiobook
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From the New York Times bestselling author of A History of the World in 12 Maps, this is the revelatory history of the four cardinal directions that have oriented and defined our place on the globe for millennia.
North, south, east, and west: almost all societies use these four cardinal directions to orientate themselves and to understand who they are by projecting where they are. For millennia, these four directions have been foundational to our travel, navigation, and exploration, and are central to the imaginative, moral, and political geography of virtually every culture in the world. Yet they are far more subjective—and sometimes contradictory—than we might realize. Four Points of the Compass leads us on a journey of directional discovery. Societies have understood and defined directions in very different ways based on their locations in time and space. Historian Jerry Brotton reveals why Hebrew culture privileges east; why Renaissance Europeans began drawing north at the top of their maps; why early Islam revered the south; why the Aztecs used five color-coded cardinal directions; and why no societies, primitive or modern, have ever orientated themselves westwards. In doing so, politically-loaded but widely used terms such as the "Middle East," the "Global South," the "West Indies," the "Orient," and even the "western world" take on new meanings. Who decided on these terms and what do they mean for geopolitics? How have directions like "east" and "west" taken on the status of cultural identities—or more accurately stereotypes?

Yet today, because of GPS capability, cardinal points are less relevant. Online, we place ourselves at the center of the map as little blue dots moving across geospatial apps; we have become the most important compass point, though in the process we've disconnected ourselves from the natural world. Imagining what future changes technology may impose, Jerry Brotton skillfully reminds us how crucial the four cardinal directions have been to everyone who has ever walked our planet. For anyone interested in history, geography, or surprising new ways to think about the world at large, Four Points of the Compass will be a stimulating experience.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 12, 2024

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781668132364
      • File size: 161770 KB
      • Duration: 05:37:00

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      This brief but delightful and highly informed audiobook begins and ends with blue spheres. First, listeners learn that the blue marble that astronauts photographed from space actually had the South Pole on top until NASA flipped the image. It ends with the ever-present iPhone blue dot that locates Apple map users. Narrator Liam Garrigan has a natural storytelling style, and his British accent and professional delivery work well in this exploration of geographic direction. He narrates at a good pace and a sensible cadence that make this science-oriented text move almost too quickly. The central idea is how the cardinal directions gave life meaning throughout history but are now being displaced in the digital age, when the ideas of east against west and south versus north have geopolitical, rather than geographical, meanings. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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