John Noble Wilford (1933–2025)

“The Eagle has landed.” So begins the events that culminate with those immortal words by Neil Armstrong, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” In We reach the moon, written in 1969 soon after the first lunar landing by John Noble Wilford, a space reporter for the New York Times, we find out how this all came to be and why we were glued to the TV set that day in July. Drawing on the vast resources of the Times, Wilford tells the story of the race for the moon show more for the average reader starting with Sputnik in 1957, the Kennedy pledge to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s, John Glenn’s flight, the Apollo 1 disaster and more, ending with splashdown of the Apollo 11 mission. Weaving the story of the men who made it happen, scientists, engineers, contractors and astronauts with the plans for rockets, capsules, lunar modules and scientific experiments makes for compelling and exciting reading, even when knowing the end result.

Wilford has included a 64 color insert with photographs of astronauts, spacecraft and the real scene-stealers, the earth and the moon from outer space. Unfortunately the black-and-white photos of the Apollo11 mission are grainy and hard to see, due to the rush to get this book in print. There is a chart with all the manned missions in space up to the publication date, both Russian and American, along with a list of all Apollo/Saturn contractors, a selection of radio transmissions as published by the Times, an excellent index and a short bibliography containing classics of the space age. The book has numerous simple drawings of equipment to explain engineering concepts and basic rocket design.

For those who want more up to date material, there is a marvelous series, The NASA mission reports published by Apogee Books, covering most of the NASA pioneering flights. Each title includes at least 1 CD-ROM with movies, images and extra textual material. The one covering Apollo 11 is a three volume set.

It is hard to image that we got to the moon with the primitive technology of the 60s. Their state-of-the-art computers look like toys with little power. The technology for rockets, space suits and other accoutrements has progressed beyond anything dreamed of in 1969. Yet we haven’t come much farther. A man on Mars, a goal for the end of the century, hasn’t happened. We don’t have colonies on the moon. Yet that moon walk defined a generation and led to such promise of peace and progress. Space indeed is “the final frontier” and that first step was taken 43 years ago. show less

The revised edition of John Noble Wilford's The Mapmakers (Vintage, 2001) updates the original edition of 1981, bringing the history of cartography and cartographers into the twenty-first century (of course given the current pace of technological changes, it's certain that it won't take twenty years before more revisions are warranted). This is probably the best single-volume history of cartographic endeavor, and most specifically the best treatment of those Wilford calls "the great pioneers show more of mapmaking."

From the earliest period of human history, we've been making maps: some good, some bad, some grossly inaccurate. Wilford surveys the historical trends in cartography and profiles those responsible for the greatest breakthroughs (and the greatest blunders). Eratosthenes and Ptolemy, Columbus and the Cassinis, Frémont and John Wesley Powell, all get their due here. Wilford tracks the involvement of governments in cartographic pursuits, and offers in-depth examinations of how changing technology (from aerial photography to laser imaging to GPS) has shaped the field.

While the majority of Wilford's text focuses on historical mapmaking and its difficulties, he also covers more recent efforts to map the still-hidden parts of our own planet (including the deep seas). In the final chapters, Wilford turns his gaze to the skies, focusing on the efforts to create useful maps of the moon, the local planets, the solar system, and even the universe.

Entirely readable and very nicely paced, this is an excellent introduction to the field, and the extensive list of references at the back will be very useful for anyone seeking further information (my one quibble is that there aren't footnotes referencing specific sources; I would have appreciated those).

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2009/07/book-review-mapmakers.html show less

John Wilford Noble’s The Mapmakers is a terrific source of stories and information about famous mapmakers and the mapping techniques of the past. A good deal of the history is related through biographical details about the “makers” and these are nearly always interesting and even dramatic. It was a profession that attracted adventurous souls. Those souls were needed, too. If we had remained obliged to rely on “learned Europeans,” we’d have been telling each other, for example, show more that mountains “categorically” can’t be higher than about 25,000 feet. Hear that, Everest, K2, Kangchenjunga, and the rest?

As mapmaking became more highly technological, which is described in the latter part of the book, adventure is less prominently part of the story. If technical text makes your heart sing, why, be sure to read the entire book. If you’d honestly just rather watch cricket, then stick to the earlier chapters for the more personal drama of mapmaking.

I read the revised edition, dated 2001. Obviously, a lot has changed since then. This isn’t the right book if your focus is the more recent quite remarkable developments. show less

This is a wonderful summary of the history of map mapping, from the time before Ptolomey through to mapping the oceans and the universe. It provides another insight into the more well known stories of exploration such as Columbus, Cook and Flinders. Most interesting is the description of the hard work put into mapping the world, the struggles with determining the size of the earth, the elusive measurement of longitude, and the politics of mapping making.

I read the second edition (2001) and show more it too is already quite dated. Therefore personal GPS systems are covered as the 'latest thing', whilst digital cameras are Google Maps are of course missing. Could the author have foreseen that in 2011 anyone with access to a computer can be involved in mapping the world, for example by geo-tagging images?

One gripe I have is that the printing process has not done justice to the illustrations and images. One wishes for high resolution images, perhaps printed on gloss stock. What are presented are very poor reproductions. Perhaps a coffee-table book just containing old maps would be a good companion book.

This book is well written. It is well structured with it's chapters, allowing the author to cover the field by subject matter, and still maintain a sensible chronological order. show less