Relief Reads 19 - The Map that Changed the World

The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester

When I was in Cambridge recently for Matt and Anne's wedding I may not have made it to King's Parade, but I had to return to Charity shop street for old time's sake and picked up this gem.

Charity Shop: Scope, Burleigh Street, Cambridge

Charity: Scope is a charity that exists to make this country a place where disabled people have the same opportunities as everyone else.

Price: £2.00, Teuer but all for a good cause

Book Blurb: William Smith was not rich or well connected, but his passion for rocks and fossils, and his twenty-year obsession with single-handedly mapping the geology of Britain made him one of the most significant men of the nineteenth century. However, his vision cost him dear - his wife went mad, his work was stolen by jealous colleagues who eventually ruined him, and he was imprisoned for debt. // Simon Winchester tells the fascinating story of 'Strata' Smith, a man who crossed boundaries of class, wealth and science to produce a map that fundamentally changed the way we viewed the world.

Expectation: Combining reading with a bit of CPD I figured this book might teach me a bit about the history of the field I've ended up working in.

Reality: In the word's of the daily telegraph 'Part biography, part social history and part entertaining yarn' It was really informative and taught me a lot about geology but was also an engaging story of William Smith's life. It was all evidential, so where gaps existed, for example regarding his wife, Winchester didn't speculate but merely presented the evidence available. This is in contrast to Pam Gregory's 'historical' books! Whilst I was reading this (on a train as usual) I got chatting to a woman who had spent the last few years researching a geologist from the 1600s. Therefore it peeved me a bit that Winchester was implying that the 1800s were the beginning of geology, when it was a subject studied by many men and some women in the preceeding years. However the 1800s did see the rather dubious beginnings of BGS so I'll give him that.

Overall Rating

It was a struggle           2        3        4        5        6        7        8       9      Gripping page  

to make it                                                                                                        turner

It was well-balanced, informative and entertaining. I'd recommend it to anyone, geologist or not. It also has pretty pictures of fossils and geological maps as a bonus.

Twist Scale:

Knew the beginning,                                                                                 As twisty as the 

middle and end         2       3        4         5       6        7        8        9      bendy wendy road

from the first line

It starts with the end, so you know where it's heading, but Smith's life was not straightforward.

Tear-jerker Scale:

 As dry as a house       2        3       4         5         6         7       8        9     Cried an ocean

 throughout

Although William Smith was hard done by, he was never broken. And the as a biography, there was emotional distance between the reader and Smith.

Main Character(s): William Smith

Moral of the Story: Follow your interest, and be glad the rigid class system is less rigid and it is no longer acceptable to exclude someone solely because they are of a different class.

***

Coming up: The Shadow of the Workhouse by Jennifer Worth (I liked Call the Midwife so much)