Legendary Islands of the Ocean Sea [Hardcover]

Robert H Fuson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1995

•Early explorers conceived of the earth as a flat disk encircled by a narrow river dotted with islands •A mythological, geographical, and historical study of the real and imagined islands in what we now know as the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans

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Fuson, a Columbus scholar and consultant to the National Geographic Society, takes an interesting tack with his survey of early maritime exploration and the new lands--both real and mythical--that were charted and described by seamen on early maps and in diaries. Fuson discusses the geographic myths spun by Homer in his tales of the fantastic voyages of Ulysses and Jason, Juan Ponce De Leon's Fountain of Youth, and numerous travelers (monks and Vikings included) and their scribes. Fuson concludes his fascinating look at the development of cartography, myths, and legends with a demonstration that the Antilia/Satanaze islands, once dismissed as mythic, are actually references to Taiwan and Japan. Nearly 70 maps and illustrations are planned. Denise Perry Donavin

Product Details

• Hardcover: 230 pages
• Publisher: Pineapple Press; 1st edition (April 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561640786
• ISBN-13: 978-1561640782
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #488,303 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Where geography, navigation and fantasy meet, January 20, 2012

By 

James J. Bloom (Silver Spring, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Legendary Islands of the Ocean Sea (Hardcover)

I have been intrigued by the persistence of apparently imaginary islands on atlases and navigational charts of the Atlantic. They have persisted there for three hundred years--well past the age when explorers had pretty well covered all the uncharted areas and provided data for reliable cartographers. My interest was sparked by reading geographer William Babcock's pioneering study Legendary Islands of the Atlantic, published in 1922. Dr. Fuson has provided a worthy successor and update of that book. The Blessed Isles/Fortunate Isles have been magnets for religious mystics and explorers since before Homer wrote the Odyssey and Plato framed his Atlantis allegory, neither of them intending to send explorers to the edges of the earth to find them. Robert Fuson has made a valiant effort to find out how and why these places continued to appear in various places on sea charts up to the 1860s.