Reviews

New Found Lands: Maps in the History of Exploration

Peter Whitfield (New York: Routledge, 1998) 200 pp. (150 maps, 100 in color), $40

All the great ancient civilizations—in the Near East, China and the Americas—developed in relative isolation. Enclosed by barriers of desert and sea, these ancients saw little reason to stray past the edges of their own civilization, where one would encounter barbaric people.

Of course there were rumors and legends. From time to time, exotic materials reached one ancient civilization from another. But from where? To learn more would require extraordinary effort. Why leave the comforts of civilized life for a trek across the wilderness? Not even Abraham, the great biblical wanderer, ventured far into the great unknown; he traveled from one spot in the Near East, Ur, to another, Canaan.