1
of
1
Terra Incognita
A History of Ignorance in the 18th and 19th Centuries
Ratings/reviews counts are updated frequently.
Check link for latest rating. ( 58 ratings, 7 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still
learning, it may not be perfect - your
feedback is welcome!
Summary
Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$4299
Unit price
/
Unavailable
AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER
Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 3-4 weeks
Found a better price? Request a price match
Terra Incognita
$4299
Unit price
/
Unavailable
Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?
"A leading historian opens up a new terrain for understanding the past: the history of ignorance"--
Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and
still learning, it may not be perfect - your
feedback is welcome!
Description
Identifying gaps in knowledge is the first duty of any historian who sets out to understand the past. It is impossible fully to understand our forebears without some idea of what they did not know: the history of ignorance is an indispensable part of history itself.
Here Alain Corbin focuses on our planet, exploring its mysteries past and present, and the intensity and eventual decline of the modes of terror and wonder it aroused. For thousands of years, humans knew nearly nothing about the earth. Certain locations on the map simply read Terra Incognita.
Corbin recounts the many errors and uncertainties that littered the paths we followed in the attempt to discover the secrets of our blue planet, with a particular focus on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when the mysteries of volcanoes, the polar regions, glaciers, the stratosphere, and the oceans began to be uncovered. While ignorance stimulated our ancestorsβ imagination, Corbinβs history of ignorance reawakens our thirst for knowledge and changes our view of the world.
Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
Terra Incognita by Alain Corbin is praised for its innovative examination of ignorance in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, focusing on what was unknown about lands, seas, and space. It is noted for its accessible and lucid style, appealing to both general readers and scholars. Reviewers commend Corbin's ability to make complex historical subjects engaging and his original approach to exploring the history of discovery.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781509546268
Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 25 June 2021
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Polity Press
Contributors:
- Translated by Susan Pickford
Audience: Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 23.0mm
Width: 137.0mm
Height: 213.0mm
Weight: 318g
Pages: 188
About the Author
Alain CorbinΒ is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Paris 1, PanthΓ©on-Sorbonne.
Also by Alain Corbin
View all-
A History of Rest
A History of Rest explores the intriguing space occupied by rest, existing between sleep and alertness. It serves as both recuperation and preparation for what lies ahead, presenting a necessity for both humans and animals. Throughout history, rest has been portrayed in various, often conflicting, waysβranging from heavenly repose to modern remedies for burnout. Despite these variations, its importance remains...Paperback$3099Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
Fragility
The distant past is commonly characterised in terms of dominant materials of the time β the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, etc. Since the dawn of writing, however, characterising eras in terms of materials has fallen by the wayside, and yet materials have continued to exert a powerful influence on our collective imagination. Viewed from this perspective,...Paperback$2399Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
A History of the Wind
Everyone knows the windβs touch, its presence, its force. Sometimes it roars and howls; at other times we hear its wistful sighs and feel its soothing caresses. Since antiquity, humans have borne witness to the wind and relied on it to navigate the seas. And yet, despite its presence at the heart of human experience, the wind has evaded scrutiny...Hardback$4099Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
A History of Silence
Silence is not simply the absence of noise. It is within us, in the inner citadel that great writers, thinkers, scholars and people of faith have cultivated over the centuries. It characterises our most intimate and sacred spaces, from private bedrooms to grand cathedrals β those vast reservoirs of silence. Philosophers and novelists have long sought solitude and inspiration in...Paperback$3599Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks
More from History & Military
View all-
Saving Elli
One child. Two years in hiding. Three lives in mortal danger. In Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, near Anne Frank's house, another Jewish girl is hidden. Her name is Elli. Her father has been executed at Mauthausen concentration camp. Her mother is fleeing for her life. Elli is next. To save her, resistance couple Frits and Jo Hakkens must risk everything, concealing her...Paperback$3299Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
The Spy and the Traitor
The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre is a spellbinding Cold War thriller that unravels the true story of Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB double agent who risked everything to aid the British in the battle against Soviet oppression. In meticulously researched detail, Macintyre paints a vivid portrait of espionage, double-crossing, and unparalleled bravery, giving readers a riveting glimpse into...Paperback$2100Elsewhere:$2600Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
New ReleaseSuicidal Empathy
The bestselling author of The Parasitic Mind shows why empathy in politics leads to civilizational collapse. What happens when a society elevates victimhood to a virtue and decides that punishment is cruel? You get the disease Dr. Gad Saad calls suicidal empathy. And the West may be terminally infected. In his new book, Suicidal Empathy, Saad unleashes a blistering critique...Paperback$3099Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
Man's Search For Meaning
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl is a profound, thought-provoking memoir and psychological exploration that delves into the harrowing experiences of life in Nazi concentration camps, intertwined with the authorβs groundbreaking theories on existential psychology. The book is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, offering a beacon of hope and a roadmap for finding purpose...Paperback$1800Elsewhere:$2100Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
Betrayal
βTom Bower is the Inspector Morse of investigative biographers, a fluent, phlegmatic storyteller and a master of intricacies.β Sunday Times The British Crown is in crisis, with constitutional threats at home and abroad. At a landmark moment in royal history, can King Charles overcome the scandals that blight the Royal family? Can the broken bonds between the Houses of Sussex...Paperback$3499Elsewhere:$3999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
The Chief and the Empire
The Chief and the Empire uncovers the extraordinary true tale of Te Tai Tokerau rangatira Te Pahi - the first influential MΔori leader to cross the Tasman - whose curiosity about the PΔkehΔ world forged alliances, saved lives, and ultimately cost him his own. On a visit to Sydney in 1805, Te Pahi was feted as a celebrity, building close...Paperback$3200Elsewhere:$3999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
Discipline
Silence is complicity, but how do we confront the cost of speaking up? Sydney, May 2021. Ashraf is an academic whose career and personal life are in freefall. Hannah is a young journalist struggling to honour the voices of her community. When a Year 12 Al-Bayinnah College student is arrested for protesting a university's ties to an Israeli weapons manufacturer,...Paperback$4000Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
Shattered Lands
'A sparkling debut by an outstanding young historian' β PETER FRANKOPAN 'This book is a revelation β¦ both original and important' β MISHAL HUSAIN A history of modern South Asia told through five partitions that reshaped it. As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia β India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and...Paperback$3699Elsewhere:$4500Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
Goliathβs Curse
Goliathβs Curse by Luke Kemp offers a radical retelling of human history through the lens of collapse, delving into what this means for our uncertain future. This narrative spans from the dawn of our species to the urgent existential threats of the twenty-first century and beyond. It's grounded in the latest research and a comprehensive database of more than 440...Paperback$2999Elsewhere:$4000Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
New ReleaseThe Good Settler
βWhere once I saw a view as I drove around the Taranaki coast along State Highway 45, I now see confiscated land from an invasion road. The creation story I used to subscribe to, the one in which hard-working people came here and settled the land, now jars. Weirdly, even the lawn looks different. The form of things just wonβt...Paperback$3199Elsewhere:$3999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
Banjara
A powerful literary debut from an astonishing new Kiwi voice, focusing on the Indo-Fijian indenture system and how it affected generations across the Pacific.Rajasthan 1888: Avani Rathod, a nomad of the Banjara community, is summoned to teach a blue-eyed colonial officer the trees of her region, but instead is misled into indenture to the sugarcane plantations of Fiji. While on...Paperback$3099Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
This Way Up
The debut book from the YouTube sensation and all-round cartographical nerds, The Map Men! In their long-awaited debut, YouTubeβs Map Men bring their highly infectious enthusiasm for everything map-related to the printed page for the very first time, in a brilliantly entertaining and eye-catching tome. Packed with humour and fascinating facts, This Way Up takes a deep dive into the...Paperback$3199Elsewhere:$3999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow
Why buy from us?
Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!
Service & Delivery
Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.
Auckland Bookstore
We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.
Our Gifting Service
Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.
