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"The story of discovery and mapmaking is one of pushing back shadows, and no one in the last two thousand years achieved as much as Gerard Mercator in extending the boundaries of the known world. His life spanned most of the turbulent, extraordinary sixteenth century, a time when war rolled across Europe and revolutions engulfed religion, science, and civilization. Almost extinguished by the Inquisition, Mercator survived to bring his genius to making maps, and his achievement was nothing less than to revolutionize the study of geography." "Appropriately for an era undergoing radical change, Mercator was full of contradiction himself, tied to knowledge and beliefs of the past, yet unafraid to forge a new path. He never traveled beyond northern Europe, yet he had the imagination to draw the entire world anew and to solve a problem that had baffled sailors and scientists for centuries: how a curved Earth could be faithfully rendered on a flat surface to allow for accurate navigation. His "projection" was so visionary that it is used by NASA to map Mars today." "Andrew Taylor has captured Mercator amid the turmoil and opportunity of his times and the luminaries who inspired his talent - his teacher and business partner, Gemma Frisius; the English wizard John Dee; his benefactor, Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor; his cartographic collaborator, Abraham Ortelius. The World of Gerard Mercator is a biography of one of the men most responsible for the modern world."--BOOK JACKET.