I am a big fan of Simon Winchester's books in general, but this one I found less enjoyable than his others. I seemed to detect occasional inaccuracies ("bird progenitor pterodactyl"? What?) or oversimplifications (sedimentation can't occur without an ocean?) which bothered me, as well as a certain habit of repetition. I am not sure these flaws were more pronounced here so much as his usual sterling qualities had less range for expression.

This is, after all, a fairly straightforward story. Though William Smith's accomplishments shaped the history of geology, his life and career are fashioned on the scale of the personal, the regional. Where Winchester has excelled, in A Crack in the Edge of the World and Krakatoa, in tracking down scores of accounts and sources and using them to fashion a multi-faceted portrait of vast cataclysm, here he has a smaller canvas to paint. He has fewer sources -- Smith's papers and abortive autobiography, his nephew's biography of him -- as well. There is less here for Winchester to thoroughly investigate and vividly imagine for us, and less surprise. Smith's ill fortune and lack of recognition is hardly startling, since it fits into a pattern in the history of the sciences in Britain, as Winchester notes.

I'm glad Winchester wrote this book. It's unfair that Smith's posterity should be confined to those who took Sedimentology and Stratigraphy courses in college, and I was glad to learn more about him than the single day's lecture I remember from that class. It was edifying, well-written and interesting. However, I feel it could have been pruned quite a bit.

Notes on the audiobook: The author narrated his own book, and did it admirably. His accents for quotes -- notably Smith's own Oxfordshire -- were lovely. ( )

A bit heavy going at times, since I'm not very science-y but a nice, informing book about how geology really started taking off as a discipline. ( )

Normally, I find biographical/historical works fascinating. Looking at the cover and reading the jacket summary, I was expecting another Longitude or Nathaniel's Nutmeg. Unfortunately, that's not what we have here. Mr. Winchester's presentation of the material completely destroyed any interest I may have had in William Smith's contribution to the founding of geological science.

I can understand that, other than his ground-breaking cartography and his conflict with those who tried to steal credit for his work, there isn't a lot of exciting material present. However, rather than take Sobel's (Longitude) approach of simply writing a shorter book, Winchester found it necessary to stuff the book chock full of endless repetition, smarmy adulation, overly-long quotation and irrelevant travelogue. Coupled with his need to employ footnotes incessantly, this caused me to lose the thread of the main story quite often.

Shortly after halfway through the book, I found myself skimming more and more frequently, trying to pick out the portions that were germane to the story in which I was interested.

A disappointment. ( )

Man, did he ever want to drive home the point that William Smith is overlooked and that everyone owes him a debt of gratitude. Not nearly as good as "The Professor and the Mad Man." Good thing it was about maps, or this would have gotten fewer stars. ( )

This biography and geological history is one of Winchester's best books. It's concise, interesting, and holds together nicely. ( )

I read Winchester because he writes scientific brain candy - meaning serious stuff that is easy to read - but this book is more of a formal biography of William Smith, credited as one of the founders of the discipline of geology. It was a bit dull at parts, I found it hard to stay focused at times, but Winchester does liven it up a bit with amazing facts and a personal interlude. Still, it's a bit over the top to keep writing books about the most INFLUENTIAL and OVERLOOKED persons of all time. ( )

This book reminds me that I missed a few classes in Ms. Liles middle school science class, so my knowledge of geological epochs is limited.

Besides that it's a bit boring.

Not as good as 'The Professor and the Madman' (also by Simon Winchester). ( )

As he did in The Professor and the Madman, Winchester chooses an obscure historical character who is inherently fascinating, but whose life and work have also had a strong impact on civilization. Here is William Smith, the orphan son of a village blacksmith, with lots of pluck and little luck until the end of his life when this pioneering first geological cartographer of the world beneath our feet was finally and fully recognized. Smith's life illustrates the interconnectedness of early 19th-century science, the industrial revolution, an intellectual climate that permits a look beyond religious dogma, and the class biases that endlessly impede his finances and fortunes. Published in 1815, Smith's huge and beautiful map of geological strata and the fossils embedded in them blazed the way for Darwin and the creation-vs.-evolution debates that rage, unfortunately, to this day.

I knew nothing at all about William Smith, so this was interesting stuff. It's entertainingly written. I did not worry too much about the geological details, as I knew I would never remember them. But it is an interesting story even if you do not know your ammonites from your belemnites or your mesozoic from your cenozoic. As Winchester says, it's amazing that Smith could put this map together all by himself, in the early 1800s, with very little education or financial backing. He should serve as an inspiration to the rest of us.

First off, what a gorgeous map. Second, this is a great account of an interesting life with several ups and downs. Told masterfully, though perhaps a bit repetitively, Winchester has once again solidly interested me in a subject about which I care not one whit. ( )

The story of the first geological map of Britain and the significance of the work done by William Smith who produced it.

A couple of years ago a friend lent me their copy of “The Surgeon of Crowthorne”, an excellent book describing the origins of the the Oxford English Dictionary and in particular the involvement of one of it’s early key contributors.

So when I was looking for something to read in an airport bookshop recently, this book by the same author immediately lept out at me.

“The Map That Changed The World” tells the story of William Smith, a man considered by many to be the father of the science of geology. In early 19th century England it was not only absurb but blasphemous to suggest that the world was more than 6,000 years old. Yet Smith, the mostly self-educated son of a Blacksmith and a surveyor by trade, managed to avoid controversy by discovering, documenting and publishing matters of indisputable fact, and leaving conclusions about the implications of these facts to others.

The story describes how this man discovered that layers of rock could be identified by the fossils contained within them, and reached the insight that similar rocks in different locations which all contained the same fossils were part of the same layer. This could be a dry and uninspiring tale, but Winchester’s talent for enthusiastic (if at times hyperbolic) prose and his clear appreciation of the subject combine to produce an engaging tale in which the education of the reader is merely a side effect.

Mostly this story tells how one man’s insight allowed him to see clearly that which had been in front of everyone for millenia, and of his vision to create a map which would reveal it to all. It also tells of his ruin and belated acknowledgment by a society still organised along class lines which had difficulty in granting a Blacksmith’s son the recognition he deserved.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable book which I’d recommend to anyone with even the slightest interest in science.

(Originally posted here: http://varrqnuht.net/archives/2005/06... ) ( )

What I hoped would be an educational, historical read about geology turned out instead to be mostly an elegiac to the alleged personal brilliance and, well, worthiness of the early 19th century geologic pioneer, William Smith. I dove in wishing for details, what I got was spates of almost whimpering testimonial about how slighted the morally unassailable Mr. Smith was by his colleagues and the general churchiness of his contemporary puritan English society. Basically: Think biography here, not history or geology, and you'll have more accurate expectations.

While I agree with most of Winchester's arguments--religion stood in the way of deeper scientific inspection, for example, he had a tendency to repeat them so often that, even as an adherent to the concept, I was put off. I should have counted how many times he repeated the notion that drawing-room dandies and dilettante geologists of the nascent Geological Society were BAD, and the practical, muddy, romanticized "real" geologists like Mr. Smith were where it was at. Tiring.

There were brief runs of interesting historical fact and glimpses into Regency life that made it tolerable. It also ended on a cheerful note, which was reassuring. ( )

This was my second Simon Winchester book (Krakatoa was the first), and I was a little disappointed again. Winchester is a good scientist and historian (and he picks good topics to write about), but I don't care for him much as a writer. Somehow the story he tells seems to lack a driving force. He comes back to certain points or foreshadows certain events time and again - some writers can do that well, but it just seems redundant here. It also takes away from some of the drama he tries to create. In one passage he describes a fossil hall in London's Museum of Natural History, and you can tell he's working his way up to Smith's collection. When he gets there though, he has nothing new to say. William Smith had an incredible fossil collection. He had serious financial difficulties for several years. Both he and his fossils have been overlooked. Important points, but also points that have all been covered in great detail in the preceding 200 pages.

Even with Winchester's less-than-perfect writing, "The Map That Changed the World" is an interesting enough read. Worth checking out from the library, or buying from a used book store. ( )

I read this five years ago, so this is based on limited memory.

This is an interesting, readable, but light biography of William Smith, the creator of the first geologic map. Those looking for an introduction to or insight into geology probably should look elsewhere.

OK, that was all overstated. But, it's more-or-less true. Simon Winchester is a good writer and publishes a lot of books, many with a geologic tilt. But, there is a cost to publishing so fast - he needs to accomplish a great deal of research at a remarkable speed, and probably on a set time schedule. He does cover a lot of ground. But, I have to imagine, every time he turns and follows further down some research path of interest, something else has to get left out. Also, he is writing for a popular audience. Anyway, we only get part of the story.

What is presented is a very interesting and detailed account of the life of William Smith, a man whose name says a lot. He was hardworking, and had hard luck; dedicated, but not brilliant. He did have brilliant idea and he ran himself ragged running back and forth across England to make it work. And he did it, going broke somewhere in the process and even spending time in a debtors prison. Tragically, his success only came over years of fascinating resistance. Here the book provides wonderful details. One "scientist," and critic of Smith, lays out a plan to cover English geology by traveling around the country and simply interviewing various peasants and locals about their local rocks. So much for the need for field work!

But what is missing is the geology. William Smith was a product both of his time AND of his geology - that of England. Had he lived anywhere else, even within the same kind culture, his map would have never come about. England is unique. It's a rare place where most of the Phanerozoic ages are present in nice layer cake sedimentary layers. They are all conveniently exposed over a somewhat limited area, and not terribly deformed. It is a place that one person could map. It almost had to be the birth place of the geological map! Telling the life of William Smith without a long discussion about the geology of England and why it is the way it is ... well, it kind of misses the point.

OK, my memories aren't that precise. I don't remember exactly how deeply Winchester actually goes into the geology. But, I do remember he doesn't go too far. When I finished I felt like Winchester wrote this book through heavy research, but without unpacking his rock hammer and without trying to answer that question of why England is blessed with its geology. ( )

Smith's life is fascinating, his passion inpiring, his legacy profound.
Winchester takes us on an enjoyable journey accompanying Smith through the English landscape.

You don't need to be a geologist to enjoy this book. It's written by someone who has the journalistic skills to be able to bring the era and social context as much as the science of the discoveries alive to the layperson.

Highly recommended. ( )

"The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology" follows the life of a visionary, William Smith, who dreamed of being the first in history to draw a geologic map of the entire nation of England. This map he would draw would revolutionize mineralogy (as geology was known during that time) and foster the Industrial Revolution. However, his en devour met with opposition from jealous aristocrats.

William Smith was the son of a blacksmith who took up surveying as a profession after his father died. He apprenticed under another well know surveyor and soon became renowned for his accuracy. Many of his early jobs involved surveying coal mines and canal routes. He noticed on his surveys that rock layers repeated from location to location, as did the fossils found in each layer of rock. The rock layers, or stata, fascinated him, and he began drawing conclusions about their order and regularity. He believed that this would prove as fact if only he were able to travel the country to test his hypothesis.

Eventually, he was hired to survey a canal that would be used to transport coal to the market in London. He used this job as an opportunity to pursue his true life's work: as he surveyed and supervised the digging of the canal, he studied the soil and rock layers. The rocks and fossils he collected he would later use to draw his map.

Financial troubles plagued Smith all his life, including financing his map's publication. He worked for almost a decade to get the necessary financial support. Finally, in 1816 he was able to publish the map. The first geologic map ever made.

Soon after the map's publication many people, including the Geological Society of London would plagiarize his work. Smith himself would receive very little credit for having compile the map until 1831.

The map made finding coal seams consistent, thus stoking the coal fires of the Industrial Revolution. William Smith's map marks a paradigm shift in human thought...it helped prove that the world was older many Christian fundamentalist believed--they believed it was only 6,000 years old. He was one of the first to recognize fossils in overlying strata were more advanced than the fossils in underlying strata--something that Charles Darwin would recognize too in his book "On The Origin of Species". ( )

http://www.schlaikjer.net/reviews/124... ( )

I should never have really reading this book. I do have an interest in the history of geology but I do not like Simon Winchester's writing. Unfortunately I bought this book before I read Krakatoa and discovered this, so decided to give him another chance while trying to clear it off my to-read shelf. Most of the issues I had with Krakatoa apply equally to this book. The writing style is 'hack-ish', overly flowery in places and suffering from fact overload in others. The continual "but all this would soon change" and "disaster was just around the corner" were just too cheesy for words, actually removing tension rather than building it. The story itself is an interesting one, William Smith indeed sounds like an overlooked character in the history of geology who got something of a bum deal from his colleagues. Although Winchester also overdoes the hero worship elements, Smith still manages to come through as something of a short sighted obsessive. There's nothing particularly new in this book, yes Smith has been ignored, but he wasn't actually *that* interesting to non-geologists or canal enthusiasts. Also there was a distinct absence of any justification for labelling it The Map That Changed the World making the whole thing feel even more like hack-journalism. The pacing of the book is slow in the extreme and it took me nearly two months to manage to plod through it. I've heard good things about some of Winchester's other works, but I don't think I'll be bothering. ( )

Interesting, rather heavier going than the Surgeon of Crowthorne -- perhaps because I know much less than about geology than I do about lexicography. Rather snide tone about the church and Christians which is rather strange considering the amount of support and encouragement Smith seems to have had from clergymen.

I could have done without Winchester's autobiographical chapter but all in all a satisfying story with our hero gaining the position he deserved after for the most part undeserved sufferings. ( )

http://dhamel.typepad.com/book_blog/2...
( )

Hagiographical? Frankly, I don't care. I luxuriated in this book.

Call me old-fashioned, but this is the style of writing that hits all the right buttons with me. It put me in mind of Michael Innes, a writer of detective fiction from the middle of the 20th century who wrote in a very formal way: his prose was beautiful, and Simon Winchester's style is very similar. I contrast it with the output of Hal Duncan - the writer of "Vellum" - which is that of someone who's experimenting ... and failing.

It's taken me a while to finish the book, so it's not the sort that sucks you in. To an extent, the subject matter is a bit sparse: there is a slight feeling of padding, such as the insertion of a semi-autobiographical chapter in the middle of the book in which Winchester recounts anecdotes which trace his interest in geology and the subject of the book: William Smith - "The Father of English Geology".

Smith plied his trade of surveying; draining land; and giving advice to landowners on the likelihood of coal lying under their property in the early 19th century. He came from humble beginnings, but quickly made a name for himself, while working in Somerset, such that he was employed throughout the land. His early jobs in coal mines gave him the opportunity to notice the layers of rock within which the coal-bearing seams lay, and he used this knowledge to relate the surface rocks to the underlying structure of the earth. His travels across the country allowed him to extend this knowledge to provide a picture of the geological make-up of England and Wales which formed the basis for surveys for individual counties, and for the country as a whole. In particular, the occurrence of fossils in particular strata (he came to be known as 'Strata Smith') gave him the idea that the layers of rock were ordered by age, and that the age of rocks was very great. This conflicted with the prevailing religious idea of the biblical formation of the Earth, but the mood of the times meant that liberal interpretations were becoming more prevalent. These ideas presaged Darwin's work that was to follow.

Smith's life was pretty up and down: he rubbed shoulders with the landed classes who employed him, and established a presence in London, but he always seemed to feel that he couldn't shake off his humble beginnings and be recognised for his contributions to the brand new science of geology. He was thrown into debtors' prison for a while, and this seemed to break his spirit and caused him to retreat from London. This was around the time that the map of the title had been published, but which failed to be the making of his reputation. He settled down to a reasonably quiet life, but recognition came to him in his retirement.

This book places Simon Winchester as a "must buy" author for me, but I can certainly see that some may find his style too florid. I'd still recommend this book for everyone, as a portrait of the changing times in the first half of the 1800s, and it's a vital purchase for anyone who is interested in geology. ( )

The wonderful story of the little known but great map maker, William Smith, a man of truly historic stature.

Towards the end of the 18th Century in England, Smith created the first ever geological map of Britain (or any other country) at a time when the very word geology had not yet been coined.

Amazingly, Smith completed this work all by himself, an extraordinary, herculean achievement. Sadly, he did not gain recognition of his achievements until late in his life, but passed his last years a contented man, lauded as the Father of English Geology. ( )

This is the first book by Winchester that I have ever read and it is a treat. Winchester writes well and it read quickly, I finished it in two lazy days. Winchester's biography of a now little-known light of science, the "founder" of geology William Smith, is a bit hagiographic, but nonetheless interesting, informative and entertaining. Perhaps Winchester highlights the class conflict between Smith and those high-born in the fledgling science a bit too much. But this must be forgiven, as our friends across the sea are still class conscious to a fault, and tend to see oppression where it might not be. ("Help! I'm being repressed here..." from Monty Python and the Holy Grail is coming to mind.) Smith comes across, even veiled in Winchester's glowing light, as a bit of a bore, a procrastinator, and heady dreamer. There are books and maps left unfinished, jobs left undone, etc. Imagine how many toes he stepped on? But that is just a minor problem I have in an overall excellent work of biography. I would like to have seen more pictures, photographs, etc., although the line drawings were nice. The hardcover dustjacket that folds out into "the map" is a nice touch. Kudos to the designer Roberto De Vico De Cumptich. And, of course, William Smith. ( )

At the very end of the 18th century, William Smith made a groundbreaking discovery in England that changed the picture of the world. He noticed that the rocks were arranged in layers which followed a pattern, and that certain fossils always appeared in certain layers of rocks. His discoveries shook the foundations of the belief that the earth and the universe were all created their entirety about 5000 years before. The discovery gave birth to geology as a science, and later to evolutionary biology, and all the sciences that followed.
It is interesting to note that Smith, as many others, was unappreciated for the most part of his life and many wanted to steal his discoveries without giving him any credit. Some published his maps in books ‘without any indication of either permission sought or payment made’, and the poor man ended up in debtors’ prison and suffered years of homelessness before he was properly honoured at the end of his life.
Not a bad book, but I would shorten it considerably on the details of Smith’s life and conversations he had with various people, and put more information on the geological processes and the history of Earth in general, especially that Winchester is an educated geologist. ( )