This work provides an intellectual context of exploration. The author asks, how did explorers and their patrons understand the expanding world and their place in it? What were they really seeking, and how did they believe they could achieve it? How did they balance the known and the unknown in their minds? Historical maps are important in answering these questions, and this book displays the geographical ideas of the explorers themselves, through the maps they used or the new maps which they caused to be made. The power that came with increasing technological and geographical knowledge is made plain by the European empires that grew out of conquest, annexation and exploitation. There are maps, which although they seem innacurate and imaginative, serve as reminders of the gaps in people's knowledge. Up until very recent times, as maps show, there have been areas of the world remaining to be explored and "new found lands" to discover.

New found lands: maps in the history of exploration

Science & Math

Peter Whitfield

Astronomy & Space Science

British Library

The idea that the destiny of mankind is somehow linked to the stars goes back over 2500 years. A powerful force in the intellectual life of Greece and Rome, astrology was condemned to near-extinction by the rise of Christianity, but was reawakened in the Middle Ages and come to permeate philosophy, literature and art. Always liable to be debased and manipulated, the principles of astrology were nevertheless for many centuries an accepted facet of religious and scientific thought and daily life. This history of astrology ranges from earliest times to the present day. It looks at the interaction with the Church and political rulers, and the book includes a large cast of heroes and villains who used astrology to achieve their aims, with varying degrees of success. What emerges time and again is the long-term survival of astrological beliefs, despite the ongoing hostility of religious leaders.

Astrology : A History

Religion & Spirituality

New Age & Spirituality

This scintillating history traces the key role astrology has played in the mainstream of Western intellectual life for more than two millennia. Peter Whitfield brings together research from ancient, classical, medieval, and modern times--and then relates astrology to the religion, philosophy, and science of each period. The unique historical manuscripts and works of art that illustrate the text, many drawn from the superb collections of the British Library, show how Western astrology evolved among different cultures and reconciled itself with many different belief systems.   This lucid, thoughtful, and stimulating work--the first serious, comprehensive history of astrology--gracefully illuminates a significant chapter in the history of ideas.  180 illustrations, 130 in full color, 208 pages, 8 1/2 x 11"

Astrology a History

Occult & Paranormal

The city has featured as the hub of civilisation in all those cultures where people have established a settled life, congregating in central places. Cities have evolved a diversity of functions, from ceremonial and religious centres to fiscal and administrative control points, or as emporia of trade. They serve as powerful symbols of the civilisations whence they derive. From the earliest times, maps of cities have been created, calling out the highest skills of the surveyor, plate-maker, artist and engraver.Peter Whitfield is a leading researcher in the history of cartography and Western science, whose previous books have all been extremely well received. In this ambitious new work, Dr Whitfield focuses on 60 cities all over the world, some of which are huge metropolises today and some of which have completely disappeared. He has chosen to reproduce an extremely wide range of maps, from all different periods, supported by historic prints and photographs.

Cities of the World: A History of Maps

History

World

The British Library Publishing Division

Mapping the Heavens

Everyone has ice cream except Bruno, and he can't get his mind off the stuff. He tries and tries to get some ice cream, but no one wants to give him any. What to do? A fun story that teaches sharing and includes vivid, imaginative illustrations, Bruno Dreams of Ice Cream, the debut title in the Zen Tails series of beautifully illustrated philosophical tales adapted for children, shows how focused attention and caring for others brings freedom, happiness, and maybe even ice cream.

Bruno Dreams of Ice Cream

Children's Books

New Frontier Publishing

Number two of a three part series of philosophical stories adapted and beautifully illustrated for children. Ages 5-10.

Up and Down

Gardners Books

Zen Tails Collection: " Bruno Dreams of Ice Cream " , " Up and Down " , " No Presents Please " (Zen

Literature & Fiction

New Frontier Pty Ltd

New Found Lands: Maps in the History of Exploration

Routledge

What is art? Why do we value images of saints, kings, goddesses, battles, landscapes, or cities from eras of history utterly remote from ourselves? This history of art shows how painters, sculptors, and architects have expressed the belief systems of their age: religious, political, and aesthetic. From the ancient civilisations of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, to the revolutionary years of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the artist has acted as a mirror to the ideals and conflicts of the human mind. He has always started with reality, but has selected and reshaped that reality to create a parallel world; a world of the imagination.

History of Western Art, The

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Naxos AudioBooks on Brilliance Audio

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Books by Peter Whitfield