The Mapmaker's Wife by Robert Whitaker
In the first part of the 18th century, the French National Academy of Sciences sent a group of distinguished scientists on a daring, decade-long expedition into the heart of South America in a bid to win the race to measure the Earth. Like Lewis and Clarke's exploration of the American west, this expedition - under the leadership of 34-year-old Charles Marie de la Condamine - was to unveil the heart of a little known continent to a world hungry for knowledge, recording countless new plant and animal species and revealing the inhuman and brutal treatment of the natives at the hands of the Spanish. But it nearly ended in disaster. Scaling the 16,000-foot Peruvian Andes, the scientists faced the depravations and dangers of the rain forest - wild cats, insects, vampire bats - and barely completed their mission. Some went mad, others succumbed to smallpox, one was stoned to death by locals and another was killed in a bullfight. And one - the youngest, Jean Godin - fell in love with a beautiful local girl, Isabel Grameson, and married her. As the expedition neared its end, so Godin wanted to bring his young family back to France. He went ahead alone, again scaling the Andes and travellin
Robert Whitaker is a science journalist and author. His most recent book was 'Mad in America'. In the past few years he has won various awards for his writing including the George Polk Award for Medical Writing and has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780385605205 |
| ISBN 10 | 038560520X |
| Title | The Mapmaker's Wife |
| Author | Robert Whitaker |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Transworld Publishers Ltd |
| Year published | 2004-08-02 |
| Number of pages | 368 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |