The Globe: How the Earth Became Round (Hardcover)
From Babylon to Columbus and beyond, a journey across millennia and—yes—the globe exploring how we came to understand our spherical planet.
The Globe tells the story of humanity’s quest to discover the form of the world: that the Earth is round and not flat. Philosophers in ancient Greece deduced the true shape of the Earth in the fourth century BCE; the Romans passed the knowledge to India, from where it spread to Baghdad and Central Asia. In early medieval Europe, Christians debated the matter, but long before the time of Columbus, the Catholic Church had accepted that Earth is a ball. However, it wasn’t until the seventeenth century that Jesuit missionaries finally convinced the Chinese that their traditional square-earth cosmology was mistaken. An accessible challenge to long-established beliefs about the history of ideas, The Globe shows how the realization that our planet is a sphere deserves to be considered the first great scientific achievement.
The Globe tells the story of humanity’s quest to discover the form of the world: that the Earth is round and not flat. Philosophers in ancient Greece deduced the true shape of the Earth in the fourth century BCE; the Romans passed the knowledge to India, from where it spread to Baghdad and Central Asia. In early medieval Europe, Christians debated the matter, but long before the time of Columbus, the Catholic Church had accepted that Earth is a ball. However, it wasn’t until the seventeenth century that Jesuit missionaries finally convinced the Chinese that their traditional square-earth cosmology was mistaken. An accessible challenge to long-established beliefs about the history of ideas, The Globe shows how the realization that our planet is a sphere deserves to be considered the first great scientific achievement.
James Hannam is the author of God’s Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and lives in Kent.
"This splendid book . . . aims mainly to dismantle ‘the conflict theory’—the idea that a battle between science and religious literalism prevented people accepting the roundness of the Earth well into the fifteenth century. . . . After a colourful tour through ancient Babylonian, Egyptian and Persian cosmologies, we arrive at the Greeks, who at last began to figure things out.”
— Spectator
"Hannam gives us context and biography, when available. . . . The virtue of Hannam’s writing style is that it is almost invisible. The reader does not have to untangle sentences, as often in academic prose, nor does the author plant the meadows of his pages with rare and distracting lexicographic blooms. As for the arc of his history, it swept me along, especially when I found I was learning a thing or two. . . . Bede called Pliny’s Natural History 'that delightful book' and the same could be said of Hannam’s own lively historical journey."
— Daily Telegraph
"This fascinating chronicle by historian Hannam traces how humanity’s understanding of Earth’s shape has changed over millennia. . . . The trivia captivates (the prevailing view under China’s Han dynasty claimed 'the sky was round and the Earth was square'), offering a globe-trotting tour of how a major scientific breakthrough made its way across the world. Readers will be enlightened."
— Publishers Weekly
"From the philosophers of ancient Greece to seventh-century Jesuit missionaries to China, the story of humanity’s quest to discover the form of our world, and how we came to know that the Earth is round and not flat."
— Bookseller
"From philosophers in ancient Greece to Jesuit missionaries in China, Hannam’s The Globe explores the history of ideas and our quest to understand our planet."
— People’s Friend
"An exploration of one of humankind’s oldest and most profound insights, The Globe is a work of compulsively readable myth-busting. As amiable as it is scholarly, Hannam’s book uses the history of the spherical Earth to provide a global tour of cosmologies through the ages."
— Philip Ball, author of "The Book of Minds"
“A tour d’horizon that spans time as well as space, this is a thrilling intellectual adventure story.”
— Tom Holland, author of "Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind"
“In an age of globalization, Hannam’s playful and erudite book reminds us of the global origins of our common understanding of the spherical earth, stretching from Babylon to NASA. A truly all-encompassing book: a wonderful achievement and a delight to read.”
— Jerry Brotton, author of "A History of the World in Twelve Maps"
— Spectator
"Hannam gives us context and biography, when available. . . . The virtue of Hannam’s writing style is that it is almost invisible. The reader does not have to untangle sentences, as often in academic prose, nor does the author plant the meadows of his pages with rare and distracting lexicographic blooms. As for the arc of his history, it swept me along, especially when I found I was learning a thing or two. . . . Bede called Pliny’s Natural History 'that delightful book' and the same could be said of Hannam’s own lively historical journey."
— Daily Telegraph
"This fascinating chronicle by historian Hannam traces how humanity’s understanding of Earth’s shape has changed over millennia. . . . The trivia captivates (the prevailing view under China’s Han dynasty claimed 'the sky was round and the Earth was square'), offering a globe-trotting tour of how a major scientific breakthrough made its way across the world. Readers will be enlightened."
— Publishers Weekly
"From the philosophers of ancient Greece to seventh-century Jesuit missionaries to China, the story of humanity’s quest to discover the form of our world, and how we came to know that the Earth is round and not flat."
— Bookseller
"From philosophers in ancient Greece to Jesuit missionaries in China, Hannam’s The Globe explores the history of ideas and our quest to understand our planet."
— People’s Friend
"An exploration of one of humankind’s oldest and most profound insights, The Globe is a work of compulsively readable myth-busting. As amiable as it is scholarly, Hannam’s book uses the history of the spherical Earth to provide a global tour of cosmologies through the ages."
— Philip Ball, author of "The Book of Minds"
“A tour d’horizon that spans time as well as space, this is a thrilling intellectual adventure story.”
— Tom Holland, author of "Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind"
“In an age of globalization, Hannam’s playful and erudite book reminds us of the global origins of our common understanding of the spherical earth, stretching from Babylon to NASA. A truly all-encompassing book: a wonderful achievement and a delight to read.”
— Jerry Brotton, author of "A History of the World in Twelve Maps"