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The Map That Changed the World
Publisher's Summary
Obsessed with creating a map that would showcase his discovery, Smith spent the next twenty years traveling England alone, studying rock outcroppings and gathering information. In 1815, he published a hand-painted map more than eight feet tall and six feet wide. But four years later, swindled out of his profits, Smith ended up in debtors' prison. His wife went mad. He lived as a homeless man for ten long years.
Eventually a kindly aristocrat discovered him; Smith, the quiet genius and 'father of geology' was brought back to London and showered with the honors that he rightly deserved. Here now is his astounding story.
What the critics say
"Winchester is a fine stylist who also has a fine, clear reading voice. He fully engages listeners, not only with the excitement of Smith's life and work, but even with geological explications that would have been pretty dull in science class." (Publishers Weekly)
"It's an authoritative delivery and an enjoyable experience." (AudioFile)
"This is just the kind of creative nonfiction that elevates a seemingly arcane topic into popular fare." (Booklist)
"Winchester brings Smith's struggle to life in clear and beautiful language." (The New York Times Book Review)
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What members say
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- Jody R. Nathan
- 2004-11-09
Who knew rocks could be so deceptive?
The story of the self educated man who made the first real geological map of Britain, and how he was ruined by the greed of those who sought the title of geologist without getting their hands dirty. I think, however, this might be improved by actually being able to see the maps discussed. It would be nice if one could actually get some of the illustrations or photos or whatever in the audible versions.
17 of 17 people found this review helpful
- Katherine
- 2008-08-30
Quite a ripping yarn!
My first Winchester book, and it has led me to a happy and edifying series of nonfiction titles. I found it difficult to follow in print, but read aloud, it became so interesting that I've listened to it three times. So far. Each time another element becomes clearer, whether it's the class insouciance of hereditary privilege, or the riveting biography of Smith, or the extent of the changes wrought by Smith's three dimensional brilliance.
Winchester's vocabulary is extensive and humbling, and his reading is exemplary. I will probably listen again.
13 of 13 people found this review helpful
- Consumer extraordinaire
- 2008-03-08
Another great Simon Winchester!
I greatly enjoyed this book. Winchester is a fantastic writer, and is one of the few people that actually do a decent job reading their own work. He does go off on tangents, and is a bit redundant, probably so you can remember where he left off when he gets back from his little sidetrips, but I enjoy most of his diversions so I don't mind.
Fun for fans of history, geology and geography, and just plain good writing!
9 of 9 people found this review helpful
- reggie p
- 2005-04-19
Geology made interesting
This was actually a biography of William Smith and a very interesting story. I've had difficulty getting through some other geology books, but wanting to fill a gap in my education, I tried this one. It was a winner. Besides geology, it contained a lot of interesting British History and showed the dark side of human behavior. I will probably have to Google stratigraphy to better learn the names of the rock layers, but the book was motivating and enjoyable wheather or not you are into rocks.
17 of 18 people found this review helpful
- Gaius
- 2013-03-13
I enjoy the history of the earth and the history of societies and this book encapsulates the two rather well. You get a good idea of the time which Smith lived, the ideas that abounded, and the man himself. William Smith reminds me a bit of Tesla in that he was a brilliant, eccentric man who was ambitious, but for some reason didn't finish things that could have solidified his career. Other books will do better to describe in detail the history of the earth via stratigraphy, but few will paint a better picture of how it was dicovered. It's just too bad WIlliam Smith wasn't a better diarist because it would have allowed Winchester to offer more from the mind of a man who's thoughts seem to be as hidden as the fossils he helped to unearth. A nice compliment to this book would be Alan Cutler's "The Seahell on the Mountaintop".
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
- Ben
- 2012-10-10
An amazing book!
What made the experience of listening to The Map That Changed the World the most enjoyable?
Who would have suspected that a book telling the story of the birth of geology as a science in England would be so fascinating and full of intrigue and drama! This was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, well written and beautifully presented. Clearly the author has a feel for the subject matter and presents it with charm and style.
What other book might you compare The Map That Changed the World to and why?
If you like history and science, just about anything that answers the question; how did this get started will do. Audible science offerings are full of books like this.
Which character – as performed by Simon Winchester – was your favorite?
William Smith of course!
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes in terms of being able to maintain my interest. But I found myself listening to some chapters over just to enjoy the story and writing more.
Any additional comments?
I suppose it takes a certain leap of faith to listen to a book about geology. But really...this is good stuff. Interesting and even exciting.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
- Reuel
- 2012-09-03
Important history
If you could sum up The Map That Changed the World in three words, what would they be?
observation, comprehension, re/evolution (cheating a little on that last "word")
What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?
The awareness that the earth was much older and dynamic than previously supposed is the crux, and the author does an excellent job placing the key observations within the economic setting of mining coal and digging canal, which he relates to one another very logically and clearly. The less interesting aspect was the class and personal rivalries that slowed acceptance (a little) but mostly threatened the credit due to Smith.
Would you listen to another book narrated by Simon Winchester?
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Any additional comments?
The author takes too much time at the beginning telling us, repeatedly, that the findings were important without actually telling us how or why. Maybe that is necessary in popularized science. He also expects the readers to know English geography better than I do. His personal experience on the beaches during school contribute only marginally to the main story. But the main story is (actually, finally) so important that these amount to quibbles.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
- W. Rodger Gantt
- 2006-08-25
Where Do Fossils Really Come From?
As a youth, William Smith wondered where fossils really came from. The common belief was that God grew them in the rocks to demonstrate His omnipresence. Smith's search for more mechanical origins gave birth to the science of geology.
"The Map that Changed the World" by Simon Winchester, chronicles Smith's life as geology's first hands-on scientist. Born in England in 1769, Smith came from a yeoman's background. The diligent youth acquired the skills to become a land surveyor so as to earn a living while studying the earth's geology. Smith was an excellent geologist but a poor businessman and eventually ended up in debtors' prison.
But persistence paid off in the form of Smith's series of handsome, geological maps of England that conveyed his understanding of fossils and the geological strata in which he found them. This knowledge paved the way for such greats as Richard Owen, who coined the term dinosaur, and Charles Darwin.
Simon Winchester, his own reader, does an excellent job of describing not only Smith's life but also such things as how debtors' prisons worked and how Smith created his maps. This book is for those interested in the history of science in its sociological context.
10 of 12 people found this review helpful
- andrew
- 2012-07-14
Long, Better as an Article than a book
I've read all of Winchester and if you love geology, this may be the book for you, but as I told some friends, a book that uses the word chromo-stytography can only be so entertaining. This keeps turning over the man's personal life and you get a biography that feels stretched. The book is also fattened with a long interview at the end about other books by the author. So its thinner than you think, and should be thinner still. I don't think there was a book here though I learned something and the story is fascinating, but it should be a section in another longer work, not its own stand-out.
6 of 7 people found this review helpful
- Andy
- 2009-02-06
first rate
Simon Winchester pulled together a ton of interesting information and weaved it into a fascinating story of how the Oxford English Dictionary came to life. Beyond the facts, the language he uses and his terrific narration make this audiobook first rate.
5 of 8 people found this review helpful


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Direct introduction and guru yoga is the main practice. Dzogchen is not the path of transformation so it is not dealing with your samsaric situation. It is going directly from mind to nature of mind. And yes he gave practices from higher and lower tantras. Dzogchen practitioners can even make use of non-buddhist methods if it helps.CrawfordHollow wrote:My point is, I am not a dzogchen missionary, believe me...
is that it does no good to just deny karma, deny cause and effect, and just pretend that you are in rigpa 24/7. I mean, didn't your dzogchen teacher give you any practices to do, or did they just say, "OK, now you have the introduction, see you on the other side?" Those practices are for dealing with your samsaric condition. It does no good to delude yourself and think that because everything is unreal, you don't have to worry about anything. Or what's worse, pointing to other practitioners and saying how low their view and practice must be because they are talking about karma, which of course we all no doesn't exist. I mean, is that what your teacher does?
And yes my teacher Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche does say that everything is unreal, it's a big dream, so we have to get to reality ASAP by doing guru yoga mainly. According to him, to be a perfect Dzogchen practitioner, simple GY of White A and Tigle, plus presence of mind through the day, is all we need to do.
He doesn't say we can ignore circumstances. We must be aware of our situation all the time. But he does say that we need not theorize about karma or engage in analysis. It is sufficient to be mindful of that state of Guru Yoga.

subset: commoncrawl


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17 Positional Escapes In 10 Minutes – Mount & Back Mount – Jason Scully
Time for part 3 of my 4 part positional escaping reference video series. I hope you are enjoying it so far.
In the 3rd video you'll see demonstrations of:
– Mount Escapes
– Back Mount Escapes
This video is about 10 minutes long.
Check it out here: http://grapplersguide.com/escapes-part-3
The reason I chose to make this my most elaborate series is because escapes are severely under trained but they are the most important thing you should be proficient in, in my opinion. Without escapes, your game will suffer a lot.
Anyway, hope you have been enjoying the videos. Only one more part to go and that's going to cover some unusual positions as well.
Thanks and happy escaping,
Jason Scully


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Weekly AUDIO NEWS for August 28, 2002
First Universal SACDs In Two Weeks - The first dozen SACDs from Universal Music will be released September 10. Music retailers have been ordering for a couple weeks to be ready for the launch, which brings the world's biggest family of labels into the SACD fold. Some of the titles: Diana Krall - The Look of Love, John Coltrane - A Love Supreme, Bryn Terfel Sings Wagner Arias, Andrea Bocelli - Cieli di Toscana, Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong, Ivan Fisher - Slavonic Dances, Muddy Waters - Folk Singer, Seiji Ozawa and Vienna Philharmonic - New Year's Concert 2002, Getz & Gilberto, A Beautiful Mind soundtrack. It is not known if any of the first releases are multichannel or if they are all stereo.
Net Downloads Not Cause of Lower Music Sales - A recent report from Forrester Research shows that the Net downloading of music is not responsible for the 15% downturn in music sales in general, even though the number of MP3 downloads now is greater than the number of actual physical CDs sold. A number of working commercial downloadable music sites are now in operation and generating considerable income. BMG and AOL are big names here, but everyone is taking a different route to charging for downloads and handling copyright, royalties etc. Forrester predicts that a standard agreement on downloadable music may not occur until 2005. So what is the major cause of lost revenue by the record industry? Organized large-scale piracy. Some might also opine that a contributing factor is the lousy state of pop music today.
Mandate on Digital TV Tuners - The FCC has voted to require all TV manufacturers to install digital off-air tuners in all TV sets offered for sale by July of 2007. They are also considering heavy "broadcast flag" protection of HDTV transmissions to prevent them being stolen and re transmitted by pirates. The Consumer Electronics Association is not at all happy with the requirement, pointing out that only 10% of viewers depend on over-the-air telecasts - the rest using cable or dish. Some analysts question the government's giveaway to local stations of the major chunk of the spectrum for DTV when very little programming of consequence comes from local stations anymore. They feel the very bumpy transition to HDTV would have gone much more smoothly if it had focused on satellite services and cable and just ignored the local telecasters. (On the other hand, some of us are not comfortable paying the high monthly charges for either dish or cable HDTV service, especially when we never have time to watch all those channels anyway. Personally I'm going to get a DTV tuner for my HDTV-ready set, hook it to an outdoor antenna (remember those?) and occasionally watch the considerable amount of free, highest-resolution HDTV programming provided by our local stations, including the PBS outlet.)
Send Your Comments to AUDIOPHILE AUDITION
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Intern Abroad
A direct and easy-to-use resource for students and young people seeking international experiences.
Global Experiences
Internships available in Ireland, Italy, Australia, Spain, France and the UK; this site also has information regarding employment and volunteer work abroad.
Cross Cultural Solutions
Year-round, two- to 12-week programs at 11 sites in nine countries.


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Another study has found an association between eating meat and premature death, this time linking the consumption of bacon, sausage and other processed meats with cardiovascular disease and cancer in a study of nearly a half-million Europeans.
"Overall, we estimate that 3% of premature deaths each year could be prevented if people ate less than 20 grams processed meat per day," Sabine Rohrmann of the University of Zurich, who led the study, said in a statement. (Twenty grams is about 0.7 ounces; a hot dog comes in at 50 to 70 grams or more, depending on the brand, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture website.)
The research, which followed people in 10 European countries in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition over one to two decades, was published Thursday in Biomed Central's open-access journal BMC Medicine. Researchers used questionnaires and food intake diaries for 448,568 men and women who were ages 35 to 69 when the study began.
The researchers noted that it's difficult to measure the effects of eating meat on health because of differences in people's other behaviors, including smoking, exercise and drinking alcohol. But they said the large sample size of their study enabled them to isolate meat from other factors.


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Philip Martin Gallery
I am a Bird Now
May 23 - June 27, 2009
Antonio Adriano Puelo
Press Release
Press Release
Cherry and Martin presents Antonio Adriano Puleo's exhibition I Am a Bird Now, featuring ecstatic murals, paintings and sculpture that possess a bold fusion of natural history and modern abstraction. This will be the first solo exhibition at the gallery's new location at 2712 S. La Cienega Blvd.
Antonio Adriano Puleo's pictorial exploration is a twenty-first century hybrid of art history, including the painterly experimentations of modern abstraction as well as the illustrations of the 19th century American naturalist John James Audubon and Medieval illumination. The third in a series of solo shows by Puleo, I Am a Bird Now, follows up on two previous exhibitions, To This World I Must Give In (2005) and Birds and Beasts (2007). Whereas Puleo's previous exhibitions furthered a pictorial investigation of the tensions between opposing forces (Birds and Beasts) and the individual's place amongst these tensions (To This World I Must Give In), Puleo's new body of work explores the manipulation of these tensions through symmetry, pattern and the hermeticism of alchemy. Inherent in Puleo's work is the translucent dimension of ecstasy, the idea that revelation can be had through the polarities of perfect geometrical proportions, radiant color and a visceral connection to the material world.
Central to the exhibition and the artist's concerns are two wall installations, Follow The Light (2009) and They Know Why They're There (2009). Painting becomes architecture as vibrant bands of color seamlessly emerge from strategically placed, intimate canvases. These small paintings, whose compositions magnify exponentially onto the gallery walls, chart the implicit energy of expansion and contraction.
Antonio Adriano Puleo has recently shown work at LAXART (Los Angeles), China Art Objects (Los Angeles) and Schmidt Dean (Philadelphia). He has shown at the Flash Art Museum in Trevi and the Fondazione Antonio Ratti in Como, Italy, as well as at galleries in New York, Las Vegas, Boston and Portland. Articles and reviews have appeared in Art Review, The New Yorker, Nylon, LA Weekly and Las Vegas Sun. Puleo graduated with an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles.
(Cherry and Martin archive)
Philip Martin Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11am-6pm and by appointment. For further information and images please contact the gallery at +310-559-0100 or email@example.com.
Philip Martin Gallery
2712 S. La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034


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Curtin University Football Club are a community club affiliated with the university, we provide football (soccer) to residents of the local community from under 5's to Seniors and Masters. You do not need any association with Curtin University to become a member. Although football in WA does not have formal geographical catchment areas we are close by for residents of Burswood, South Perth, Como, Manning, Salter Point, Karawara, Wilson, Bentley, East Vic Park, Victoria Park, Kewdale, Shelley, Riverton, Ferndale, Cannington, Beckenham and Willetton
Come join us!
To access all the features of this site you need to Log In or Sign Up.


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We'd like to offer a sincere "THANK YOU" to our team members for all of their hard work. You organized raffles, coordinated spaghetti dinners, and even donated your hard-earned tips to the campaign. You truly worked tirelessly for the kids! Of course, we couldn't have done it without our fantastic guests. We're proud to be a part of your community and are grateful for your help in supporting children's hospitals. Even though times are tough, you really rallied to help us achieve our goal. Thank You!
Here's our team at the Whitehall Eat'n Park. With Smiley's help, they raised $782 during their Tips for Tots event. Nice work!Share


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iLaunch necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 229 diseños de 55 diseñadores freelance.
Pulse Blend
My name is Andrew and I am a web developer who doesnt try to act like he's good at logo/graphic design. I run a network of sites but am currently working on a new one which needs a logo.
My target audience is generally anyone who likes electronic music but I would estimate its probly going to be 15-25 males, maybe females. This is not a new market but a niche of existing markets. The site is similar to purevolume but with a more specific audience.
I am open to a wide variety of ideas. Essentially I am looking for a logo that reflects the electronic music genre of the website. The current beta working logo is a guy wearing headphones but I am looking for something a little better. Good ideas might include a turntable, headphones, etc. The logo needs to be vector so that I can reproduce it for letterhead, business cards, etc.
Here is the website design that it will be for so you can get an idea of color scheme:
Here is the current working logo I was talking about:
- Must be a vector so it can be reproduced for stationary, cards, etc
- Must use/fit well with color scheme from the beta site (will be in the top left)
- Must come with source files
- Words 'Pulse Blend' must be included (so I don't have to poorly try and ad them like I did in the live version of the site)
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.