Phantom Islands of the Atlantic: The Legends of Seven Lands That Never Were

Rating:
Summary: intelligently written
Review: Having just read - and been greatly disappointed by - "The Riddle of the Compas" by some Amir Aczel, I was very pleasantly suprised by Johnson's book. Where the other book was naive and feckless, this book was erudite and sophisticated in comparison. Johnson easily and concisely covers the navigational and cartographic issues involved, alongside the stories, legends and theology that were involved. As the author puts it so well, these stories represent a brief period in history when "the geography of legend and tradition gradually gave way to the geography of reality." A fascinating new twist on the Age of Discovery. for anyone with a taste for seafaring and history, and anyone who enjoyed Dava Sobels' Longitude, I recommend this book highly.

Rating:
Summary: intelligently written
Review: Having just read - and been greatly disappointed by - "The Riddle of the Compas" by some Amir Aczel, I was very pleasantly suprised by Johnson's book. Where the other book was naive and feckless, this book was erudite and sophisticated in comparison. Johnson easily and concisely covers the navigational and cartographic issues involved, alongside the stories, legends and theology that were involved. As the author puts it so well, these stories represent a brief period in history when "the geography of legend and tradition gradually gave way to the geography of reality." A fascinating new twist on the Age of Discovery. for anyone with a taste for seafaring and history, and anyone who enjoyed Dava Sobels' Longitude, I recommend this book highly.

Rating:
Summary: Much on Maps, but the Myths are Missing
Review: I hate to sound a sour note, especially in the face of unanimous five star ratings. However, Phantom Islands does not live up to its billing. To read the title and the book jacket, one would expect the book to be primarily about *legends* - tales of mysterious islands inhabited by wondrous people and creatures. One would think, too, that the cartography of the Atlantic would be secondary - an interesting side-note, but not the focus.

The opposite is true. Johnson gives an all-too brief description of the "phantom island" at issue, then launches into an exhaustive recitation of the island's appearance on maps; how so and so in 1524 put the island here, while such and such twenty years later moved it ten miles further south. It quickly becomes old.

Let me emphasize that my grievance stems largely from feeling misled. I opened the book expecting X and got Q instead. If one is looking for a history of cartography, this book probably deserves the five stars others have given it. But if you are looking for tales of legendary, vanished isles look elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Much on Maps, but the Myths are Missing
Review: I hate to sound a sour note, especially in the face of unanimous five star ratings. However, Phantom Islands does not live up to its billing. To read the title and the book jacket, one would expect the book to be primarily about *legends* - tales of mysterious islands inhabited by wondrous people and creatures. One would think, too, that the cartography of the Atlantic would be secondary - an interesting side-note, but not the focus.

The opposite is true. Johnson gives an all-too brief description of the "phantom island" at issue, then launches into an exhaustive recitation of the island's appearance on maps; how so and so in 1524 put the island here, while such and such twenty years later moved it ten miles further south. It quickly becomes old.

Let me emphasize that my grievance stems largely from feeling misled. I opened the book expecting X and got Q instead. If one is looking for a history of cartography, this book probably deserves the five stars others have given it. But if you are looking for tales of legendary, vanished isles look elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Walks the History-Mystery Tightrope
Review: There are numerous islands which have appeared on maps of the Atlantic Ocean which then disappeared when later maps were published. This delightful book tells the stories of some of these islands. These island discussed in this book are:

1.The Isle Of Demons, upon which Marguerite de la Roche spent over two years before being rescued.

2.Frisland, a large island with a king and numerous towns, sometimes south of Iceland, sometimes south of Greenland, sometimes in between.

3.Buss Island, sometimes small, sometimes large, east or west of Frisland.

4.Antillia, the Isle of Seven Cities, just West of Spain.

5.Hy-Brazil, circular with a river through it, just West of Ireland.

There are two chapters regarding two religious stories which were related to islands. One of them is the voyage of Saint Brendan, a story which inspired some to identify the islands as locations of miraculous occurrences.

Part history, part fairy tale, it is very entertaining reading of islands which, in fact, never even existed but were listed on maps for hundreds of years.

Rating:
Summary: quaint little interesting text
Review: This book is a quaint text that is very interesting. I find the discussion of imaginary lands in the Atlantic to be very fun to read about. The imaginary lands that never really existed were a symptom of something greater within the human condition: our yearning for a better place than we where are currently.

Of course, most of the lands that he discusses were just secondary discoveries of places we had already been too, and/or aspects of them got misreported, or facts about them garbled. Frisland was probably just a misreported encounter with Iceland by somebody who wasn't aware or Iceland's existence, or thought he was nowhere near Iceland for whatever reason. None of these would be out of the question, since things like accurate measurement of ones Longitude laid in the future and illiteracy was very rampant until relatively recent times.

To use a quote that Donald Johnson uses, "The power of wish and the power of words are chief gods in the world of fable" - C. B. Firestone. Meaning that sometimes people want to dream things because they want too. And if they decide to believe those thoughts... while, it might not be healthy for them, like other vices, in moderation is probably okay for them.

Later generations, and most notably British, French and later American navel cartographers removed the mystery lands because they wanted to know where islands really were, like in case you really need to make land fall in an emergency. So, they cleaned up the nonexistent places from the old maps.

Beliefs in these lands made people feel better about themselves for whatever reasons they might have had. Today people immerse themselves into less healthy systems at times. Was something lost? Not really. We just moved our inherent yearning to other places... many have moved their thoughts to the stars and thoughts of other planets. Some yearning of that nature can be healthy, but it can be carried to extremes.

I liked this book because it placed some of this kind of thinking into a historical context.

Rating:
Summary: quaint little interesting text
Review: This book is a quaint text that is very interesting. I find the discussion of imaginary lands in the Atlantic to be very fun to read about. The imaginary lands that never really existed were a symptom of something greater within the human condition: our yearning for a better place than we where are currently.

Of course, most of the lands that he discusses were just secondary discoveries of places we had already been too, and/or aspects of them got misreported, or facts about them garbled. Frisland was probably just a misreported encounter with Iceland by somebody who wasn't aware or Iceland's existence, or thought he was nowhere near Iceland for whatever reason. None of these would be out of the question, since things like accurate measurement of ones Longitude laid in the future and illiteracy was very rampant until relatively recent times.

To use a quote that Donald Johnson uses, "The power of wish and the power of words are chief gods in the world of fable" - C. B. Firestone. Meaning that sometimes people want to dream things because they want too. And if they decide to believe those thoughts... while, it might not be healthy for them, like other vices, in moderation is probably okay for them.

Later generations, and most notably British, French and later American navel cartographers removed the mystery lands because they wanted to know where islands really were, like in case you really need to make land fall in an emergency. So, they cleaned up the nonexistent places from the old maps.

Beliefs in these lands made people feel better about themselves for whatever reasons they might have had. Today people immerse themselves into less healthy systems at times. Was something lost? Not really. We just moved our inherent yearning to other places... many have moved their thoughts to the stars and thoughts of other planets. Some yearning of that nature can be healthy, but it can be carried to extremes.

I liked this book because it placed some of this kind of thinking into a historical context.

Rating:
Summary: Nice book
Review: Until the problem of longitude was worked out in the 1700s, sailors and cartographers had great difficulty affixing exact locations of land masses. Islands were particularly elusive, and many of them had a habit of wandering around in the ocean! Occasionally, someone would bump into an island; think a new discovery was made; give it a name; and then spread the news to mapmakers. Some islands got discovered and named several times. Other islands were imagined or invented. Imagine the confusion of a poor navigator trying to figure out where he was if he was relying on a map drawn from hearsay.

Phantom Islands of the Atlantic is filled with quaint maps and illustrations. Mr. Johnson's narrative is breezy and entertaining yet well-researched and informative. This book is a delight!