The Lost Art of Finding Our Way / John Edward Huth.
Huth, John Edward, author.
2013
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Title The Lost Art of Finding Our Way / John Edward Huth.
Author Huth, John Edward, author.
ISBN 9780674074811
DOI https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674074811
Published Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2013]
Copyright ©2013
Language English
Language Note In English.
Description 1 online resource (538 p.) : 171 halftones, 54 line illustrations, 3 tables
Other Standard Identifiers 10.4159/harvard.9780674074811 doi
Summary Long before GPS, Google Earth, and global transit, humans traveled vast distances using only environmental clues and simple instruments. John Huth asks what is lost when modern technology substitutes for our innate capacity to find our way. Encyclopedic in breadth, weaving together astronomy, meteorology, oceanography, and ethnography, The Lost Art of Finding Our Way puts us in the shoes, ships, and sleds of early navigators for whom paying close attention to the environment around them was, quite literally, a matter of life and death. Haunted by the fate of two young kayakers lost in a fogbank off Nantucket, Huth shows us how to navigate using natural phenomena-the way the Vikings used the sunstone to detect polarization of sunlight, and Arab traders learned to sail into the wind, and Pacific Islanders used underwater lightning and "read" waves to guide their explorations. Huth reminds us that we are all navigators capable of learning techniques ranging from the simplest to the most sophisticated skills of direction-finding. Even today, careful observation of the sun and moon, tides and ocean currents, weather and atmospheric effects can be all we need to find our way. Lavishly illustrated with nearly 200 specially prepared drawings, Huth's compelling account of the cultures of navigation will engross readers in a narrative that is part scientific treatise, part personal travelogue, and part vivid re-creation of navigational history. Seeing through the eyes of past voyagers, we bring our own world into sharper view.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics text file PDF
Source of Description Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Aug 2021)
In E-BOOK GESAMTPAKET / COMPLETE PACKAGE 2013
E-BOOK PACKAGE CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS SC., BIOL., GEOSC. 2013
E-BOOK PAKET CHEMIE, MATERIALWISS., BIOLOGIE, GEOWISS. 2013
HUP eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013 (Canada)
Harvard University Press eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013
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Frontmatter
Contents
1. Before the Bubble
2. Maps in the Mind
3. On Being Lost
4. Dead Reckoning
5. Urban Myths of Navigation
6. Maps and Compasses
7. Stars
8. The Sun and the Moon
9. Where Heaven Meets Earth
10. Latitude and Longitude
11. Red Sky at Night
12. Reading the Waves
13. Soundings and Tides
14. Currents and Gyres
15. Speed and Stability of Hulls
16. Against the Wind
17. Fellow Wanderers
18. Baintabu's Story
Appendix 1: Major Star Coordinates and Mapping onto Earth
Appendix 2: Some Significant Events in Latitude and Longitude
Appendix 3: Toledo Tables
Appendix 4: Sailing Capabilities in Baintabu's Story
Glossary
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

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