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HOW TO GO ANYWHERE (AND NOT GET LOST) by Hans Aschim

HOW TO GO ANYWHERE (AND NOT GET LOST)

A Guide to Navigation for Young Adventurers

by Hans Aschim ; illustrated by Andrés Lozano

Pub Date: June 23rd, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5235-0634-7
Publisher: Workman

Since prehistoric times, human beings have been trying not to get lost; Aschim traces how we got better and better at finding our way.

Before the advent of radio waves and GPS (which the book also covers), humans navigated using everything from stars and ocean swells to trees and sand dunes. Aschim traces how humans used these natural systems to build increasingly sophisticated navigation tools, such as the chronometer and the compass rose. Interspersed among the historical and scientific descriptions are activities designed to reinforce concepts and to help readers become master navigators themselves, such as making a sextant and practicing dead reckoning. The book is at its finest when it explores broad scientific and social concepts, such as the inherent navigational capacities of the human brain or the seafaring practices of the ancient Polynesians. Unfortunately, as the book continues, these moments grow fewer and fewer, the text bogging down with lengthy mathematical explanations and dense exposition. The book’s hectic design—including its frenetic color scheme—makes it even more difficult for readers to concentrate. Additionally, while Aschim admirably highlights navigational advances made by a range of nations and cultures, from the nomadic Bedouins to the ancient Chinese, he does not apply this same critical lens to the European conquests, which he describes as exploration rather than the dangerous beginnings of colonialism.

Focuses too much on the mundane and too little on the sublime.

(afterword, index) (Nonfiction. 9-12)