
Four Points of the Compass
The Unexpected History of Direction
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Narrated by:
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Liam Garrigan
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By:
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Jerry Brotton
About this listen
From the New York Times bestselling author of A History of the World in 12 Maps, this is the revelatory history of the four cardinal directions that have oriented and defined our place on the globe for millennia.
North, south, east, and west: almost all societies use these four cardinal directions to orientate themselves and to understand who they are by projecting where they are. For millennia, these four directions have been foundational to our travel, navigation, and exploration, and are central to the imaginative, moral, and political geography of virtually every culture in the world. Yet they are far more subjective—and sometimes contradictory—than we might realize. Four Points of the Compass leads us on a journey of directional discovery. Societies have understood and defined directions in very different ways based on their locations in time and space. Historian Jerry Brotton reveals why Hebrew culture privileges east; why Renaissance Europeans began drawing north at the top of their maps; why early Islam revered the south; why the Aztecs used five color-coded cardinal directions; and why no societies, primitive or modern, have ever orientated themselves westwards. In doing so, politically loaded but widely used terms such as the “Middle East,” the “Global South,” the “West Indies,” the “Orient,” and even the “western world” take on new meanings. Who decided on these terms and what do they mean for geopolitics? How have directions like “east” and “west” taken on the status of cultural identities—or more accurately stereotypes?
Yet today, because of GPS capability, cardinal points are less relevant. Online, we place ourselves at the center of the map as little blue dots moving across geospatial apps; we have become the most important compass point, though in the process we’ve disconnected ourselves from the natural world. Imagining what future changes technology may impose, Jerry Brotton skillfully reminds us how crucial the four cardinal directions have been to everyone who has ever walked our planet. For anyone interested in history, geography, or surprising new ways to think about the world at large, Four Points of the Compass will be a stimulating experience.
©2024 Jerry Brotton (P)2024 Simon & Schuster AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- Narrated by: Dan Jones
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Henry V reigned over England for only nine years and four months and died at the age of just thirty-five, but he looms over the landscape of the late Middle Ages and beyond. The victor of Agincourt, he is remembered as the acme of kingship, a model to be closely imitated by his successors. William Shakespeare deployed Henry V as a study in youthful folly redirected to sober statesmanship. For one modern medievalist, Henry was, quite simply, “the greatest man who ever ruled England.”
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Young prince survives horrific battle injury and becomes England's greatest military leader and King
- By Melissa T on 11-21-24
By: Dan Jones
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Serendipity
- The Unexpected in Science
- By: Telmo Pievani, Michael Gerard Kenyon - translator
- Narrated by: Brian Conover
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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How many times have we looked for something and found something else? A partner, a job, an object? The same thing often happens to scientists: they design an experiment and discover the unexpected, which usually turns out to be very important. This fascinating phenomenon is called serendipity, which takes its name from the mythical Serendip, a place from which, according to a Persian fable, three princes set off to explore the world, making chance discoveries along the way.
By: Telmo Pievani, and others
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Explorers
- A New History
- By: Matthew Lockwood
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Unfurling a tapestry of surprising and historically overlooked figures spanning forty centuries and six continents, historian Matthew Lockwood narrates lives filled with imagination and wonder, curiosity, connection, and exchange. Adventurers from every corner of the globe search for the unknown and try to understand it, remaking the world and themselves in the process. Exploration is for everyone who sets off into the unknown. It is the inheritance of all.
By: Matthew Lockwood
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Cabinet of Curiosities
- A Historical Tour of the Unbelievable, the Unsettling, and the Bizarre
- By: Aaron Mahnke, Harry Marks - contributor
- Narrated by: Aaron Mahnke
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The podcast, Aaron Mahnke’s Cabinet of Curiosities, has delighted millions of listeners for years with tales of the wonderful, astounding, and downright bizarre people, places, and things throughout history. Now, in Cabinet of Curiosities the book, learn the fascinating story of the invention of the croissant in a country that was not France, and relive the adventures of a dog that stowed away and went to war, only to help capture a German spy.
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Cool stories, annoying conversation
- By Margaret on 11-26-24
By: Aaron Mahnke, and others
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Left for Dead
- Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World
- By: Eric Jay Dolin
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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The best-selling author of Black Flags, Blue Waters tells the story of a wild encounter between an American sealing vessel, a shipwrecked British brig, and a British warship in the Falkland Islands during the War of 1812. Fraught with misunderstandings and mistrust, the incident left three British sailors and two Americans including the captain of the sealer, Charles H. Barnard abandoned in the Falklands for eighteen months.
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Great history
- By Pullman on 07-31-24
By: Eric Jay Dolin
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Every Valley
- The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah
- By: Charles King
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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George Frideric Handel’s Messiah is arguably the greatest piece of participatory art ever created. Adored by millions, it is performed each year by renowned choirs and orchestras, as well as by audiences singing along with the words on their cell phones. But this work of triumphant joy was born in a worried age. Britain in the early Enlightenment was a place of astonishing creativity but also the seat of an empire mired in war, enslavement, and conflicts over everything from the legitimacy of government to the meaning of truth.
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This book is not about Handel
- By Charlie White on 11-22-24
By: Charles King
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Henry V
- The Astonishing Triumph of England's Greatest Warrior King
- By: Dan Jones
- Narrated by: Dan Jones
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Henry V reigned over England for only nine years and four months and died at the age of just thirty-five, but he looms over the landscape of the late Middle Ages and beyond. The victor of Agincourt, he is remembered as the acme of kingship, a model to be closely imitated by his successors. William Shakespeare deployed Henry V as a study in youthful folly redirected to sober statesmanship. For one modern medievalist, Henry was, quite simply, “the greatest man who ever ruled England.”
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Young prince survives horrific battle injury and becomes England's greatest military leader and King
- By Melissa T on 11-21-24
By: Dan Jones
What listeners say about Four Points of the Compass
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Claire Sachse
- 01-12-25
Fascinating
This book truly encourages you to see things from perspectives never considered, to question one’s orientation metaphorically speaking. It’s amazing how four simple words and directions have influenced human history.
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- J. Fogel
- 02-01-25
Thoughtful, provocative essay on our places in the world
Brotton uses his immense knowledge of the history of travel and global connections to pull together a profound reflection on the cultural, linguistic, ideological and physical meanings of the four compass points--and on the facets and results of our unmooring ourselves from that rich history in the digital age.
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