A Source Book in GeographyThis remarkable volume presents a panorama of geographical writings from Hesiod to Humboldt, from the beginnings of geographical thought in the Western world to the emergence of topical specialization. It includes a wealth of material from non-Western sources, particularly Moslem and Chinese, that has not been collected before. The selections are arranged chronologically, and contain geographical theory, descriptions of terrestrial phenomena by early observers, and excerpts from major voyages of discovery. Some are obvious classics: Socrates on the nature of the Earth, Ezekiel's description of the commerce of Tyre, Columbus' first glimpse of the West Indies, Buffon on the history of the Earth, and Kant's geographical lectures. Yet more commonly, Mr. Kish provides a sense of the discovery with such finds as the ambassador's report to the Caliph of Baghdad on the lands and customs of the Norsemen, the study of the Tartar Empire by John of Monte Corvino, Archbishop of Peking, and Jefferson's private memo to Alexander von Humboldt seeking information on the American West. Each section is highlighted by a brief but engagingly written introduction by the editor. Throughout, the unique cultural and professional perspective of George Kish is very much in evidence. |
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Contents
The Beginnings | 1 |
Ezekiel describes the commerce of Tyre | 3 |
Hesiod on the seasons | 5 |
Hesiod on the winds | 8 |
Early Greek Geography | 9 |
Anaximander considers the earth he offers an explanation for wind and rain thunder and lightning | 11 |
Anaxagoras on the shape of the earth eclipses and atmo spheric phenomena | 16 |
Philolaus and Parmenides | 17 |
Ibn Khordadbeh describes Byzantium some trade routes and the divisions of the inhabitable world | 216 |
AIMuqaddasi on Tiberias Iraq and Kairouan | 218 |
Idrisi on the cities and countries of the Christian and Moslem worlds | 220 |
AlDimashqi on the divisions of the world and on the stone called emery | 223 |
his travels | 225 |
Ibn Khaldun on geography | 229 |
Revival of Geography in the West | 236 |
John of Holywood Sacrobosco on the sphere | 240 |
Xenophanes on the origin of fossils | 20 |
Greek Maritime Writings | 21 |
Greek sailing directions | 24 |
Dionysius on Mediterranean | 26 |
From the Geographical Writings of Plato and Aristotle | 29 |
Plato on the fate of Atlantis | 30 |
Aristotle on the cosmos and the oikumene | 31 |
Aristotle considers the citystate | 37 |
Aristotle discusses water and dry land world views and maps earthquakes and their causes | 38 |
An Early Environmentalist | 45 |
Greek Heliocentric Theory | 51 |
Greek Travelers Reports | 55 |
Xenophon on western Asia | 63 |
An early description of southernmost Persia | 65 |
Pytheas of Marseille on northern Europe | 67 |
Megasthenes describes India | 71 |
Geography in the Hellenistic Age | 73 |
From the writings of Hipparchus | 78 |
Posidonius on the size of the earth and on zones | 80 |
Polybius describes the Black Sea and Italy | 82 |
the summing up of Greek geography | 85 |
Ptolemy on the field of geography and on divisions of the earth | 105 |
Latin Encyclopedists | 117 |
Varro on soils | 127 |
Pomponius Mela on the earth on Europe and on Africa | 128 |
Solinus describes Italy Thrace the Hyperboreans the crocodile China and India | 131 |
a late Roman geographer | 135 |
Landscape in Latin Prose and Poetry | 143 |
Vergil on the Creation on zones of the earth and on winds | 148 |
Horace describes the Italian landscape | 150 |
Tacitus on Germany Britain and Judaea | 152 |
Christian Geography | 156 |
Bishop Eucherius on the holy places | 159 |
The Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes | 161 |
an early Christian encyclopedia | 163 |
the Venerable Bede on the situation of Britain and Ireland | 167 |
From Dicuils De mensura orbis terrae | 170 |
Ohtheres report on northernmost Europe | 172 |
Geography in the Byzantine Empire | 175 |
Constantine VII describes the great water road of Russia the trade routes of the Byzantine Empire and the city of Venice | 177 |
The Norse Contribution | 184 |
Adam of Bremen on the northern islands | 187 |
Norse discoveries in North America | 189 |
a medieval handbook on the northern lands | 193 |
Moslem Geography | 199 |
a geographers experiences in pursuit of knowledge | 200 |
Ibn Hauqal on the world of Islam and the lands beyond it | 202 |
Ibn Hauqal on Spain the Byzantine lands and Sicily | 205 |
AlMasudi on the earth and its inhabitable portion on Syria Egypt and Iraq | 207 |
AlBiruni on the determination of longitude | 211 |
AlBiruni reflects on the geography of earlier times | 213 |
Enlarging Horizons by Travel | 249 |
Marco Polo on Asia and its marvels | 250 |
a Franciscan papal ambassador journeys to the Mongol court | 257 |
William of Rubruck ambassador of the King of France on Mongolia | 259 |
John of Monte Corvino first archbishop of Peking on the Nestorian Christians and the Tartar Empire | 262 |
Pegolottis advice to merchants traveling to Asia | 266 |
Nicolo Conti on India in the early 1400s | 269 |
notes of an armchair geographer | 271 |
Physical Geography in the Later Middle Ages | 275 |
Roger Bacon on the shape of the universe and the size of the earth on the Nile and on China | 278 |
Albert the Great on the nature of places | 283 |
Geographical Writings of the Age of Discovery | 289 |
the state of the art in 1507 | 290 |
Zurara on the early Portuguese voyages to western Africa | 293 |
Camoens poetic description of da Gamas voyage to India | 297 |
Toscanelli on sailing westward to the Indies | 305 |
Columbus describes the first glimpse of the West Indies | 307 |
the formal report to Ferdinand and Isabella MI | 311 |
Waldseemiiller names the New World America | 318 |
Pigafetta on the first circumnavigation of the earth | 319 |
Roger Barlow first Englishman to sail to South America reports on the New World | 323 |
From Hakluyts Voyages | 327 |
William Bourne presents the basic rules of navigation to his fellow seamen | 333 |
secret orders from the Admiralty and his description of New South Wales | 341 |
German Geographers of the Sixteenth Century | 348 |
Gemma Frisius describes a new method to determine longitude | 349 |
Peter Apianus on Asia and America | 350 |
From the Cosmography of Sebastian Miinster | 353 |
Josias Simler describes glaciers and avalanches | 360 |
Leonhart Rauwolf on the lands peoples and plants of the Near East | 361 |
The Seventeenth Century | 364 |
Conrad Gessner contemplates the Alps | 366 |
From the Geographa Generalis of Bernardus Varenius | 370 |
Eighteenth Century Concepts of Geography | 378 |
The Lapland journey of Linnaeus | 382 |
Buaches Framework of the Earth | 386 |
Polycarp Leyser on geography and history | 388 |
Johann Michael Franz defines the state geographer | 389 |
Johann Gottfried von Herder on the charm and necessity of the study of geography | 390 |
Anton Friedrich Busching on geography | 391 |
Albrecht von Haller on the vertical zoning of vegetation | 392 |
Measuring the Earth | 394 |
Humboldt and Ritter | 402 |
From Humboldts Kosmos | 408 |
From Humboldts Aspects of Nature | 415 |
From Ritters introduction to general comparative | 421 |
Robert Dickinson on Ritters main geographical concepts | 428 |
FaHsien a Chinese Buddhist travels to the land of | 436 |
Chau JuKua on Chinese overseas trade | 444 |
451 | |