Podcast appearances and mentions of edward brooke hitching

Edward Brooke-Hitching will in seinem Bildband "Liebe" dem Wesen dieses komplizierten Gefühls auf die Schliche kommen.

Gerk, Andrea www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Studio 9

Gerk, Andrea www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Studio 9

Gerk, Andrea www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Studio 9

From prehistoric carvings and medieval spell books to grand romantic gestures and tokens of affection, throughout history there has been no shortage of ways to say those three little words. Speaking to Charlotte Hodgman, Edward Brooke-Hitching shares some incredible, and curious, stories of love through time – from ancient Mesopotamia to the modern day. (Ad) Edward Brooke-Hitching is the author of Love: A Curious History (Simon & Schuster, 2023). Buy it now from Waterstones: https://go.skimresources.com?id=71026X1535947&xcust=historyextra-social-histboty&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.waterstones.com%2Fbook%2Flove-a-curious-history%2Fedward-brooke-hitching%2F9781398522718 The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Der britische Autor und Filmemacher Edward Brooke-Hitching ist ein leidenschaftlicher Sammler und hat ein ausgeprägtes Interesse für die exzentrischen Seiten des Lebens. Er umgibt sich gern mit alten Karten und staubigen Büchern und bündelt sein Wissen in Bestsellern wie „Atlas der erfundenen Orte“, „Atlas des Himmels“ und „Atlas des Teufels“. Jetzt hat er auf der Suche nach dem Schrägen, Schönen und Abgründigen eine „Bibliothek des Wahnsinns“ zusammengestellt. Frank Dietschreit ist dem Autor in diese spezielle Bibliothek gefolgt und hat darin einige unerwartete Dinge gefunden.

Dan is in Australia without key recording equipment so here's a treat from the We Can Be Weirdos vault! It's the original pilot for the show, and a totally brilliant, batsh*t chat with Edward Brooke-Hitching. Edward is a screenwriter and author of titles including The Madman's Library, Fox Tossing, Octopus Wrestling and Other Forgotten Sports and The Madman's Gallery: The Strangest Paintings, Sculptures and Other Curiosities From the History of Art. His latest book, Love - A Curious History in 50 Objects, is out on October 26th 2023. The Rough Corner needs YOU! Get in touch with your unexplainable experiences, odd theories, related research and your thoughts on the topics covered in the main episodes.

Hoy los mapas son omnipresentes. Los tenemos tan a mano en cualquier sitio que no les damos importancia, es más, acostumbramos a mirar un mapa de forma rutinaria cuando queremos desplazarnos de un punto a otro ya sea caminando, en automóvil o en Metro. Es fácil y accesible porque la tecnología contemporánea ha permitido que dispongamos de una infinidad de mapas especializados para casi cualquier cosa. Todo está cartografiado y gracias a los satélites sabemos el punto exacto del planeta en el que nos encontramos con una precisión de apenas un metro. Tal abundancia de mapas, es decir, de representaciones de la Tierra en una superficie plana, hubiera maravillado a nuestros ancestros, especialmente a los lejanos cuya ignorancia sobre el tamaño de nuestro planeta y también sobre lo que contenía era absoluta. Mapas de lo más cercano existen desde tiempos remotos. Los arqueólogos los han encontrado en lugares como Mesopotamia y la cuenca del Mediterráneo, pero una cosa es cartografiar un valle o un paraje concreto y otra bien distinta es hacerlo con todo el mundo conocido. Para eso hizo falta que una serie de geógrafos griegos inventasen primero esa disciplina y alumbrasen luego otra que tampoco existía, la cartografía, es decir, el arte de trazar mapas donde se plasmase en un espacio bidimensional lo que los geógrafos iban describiendo gracias a sus viajes o a las noticias que les llegaban de distintas partes del mundo. El primer geógrafo fue Homero, el autor de la Ilíada y la Odisea, dos relatos plagados de descripciones con las que se podía elaborar un mapa muy detallado. Homero creía saber cómo era el mundo. Según él era circular, en el centro estaban las tierras emergidas y a su alrededor un océano enorme. Esa idea de una gran isla rodeada por abismos marinos se mantuvo durante siglos hasta que otros griegos, esta vez radicados en Alejandría, se propusieron medir el mundo y determinar si era plano o esférico. Concluyeron que la forma de nuestro planeta era esférica y se atrevieron incluso a medirla con una sorprendente precisión valiéndose de las matemáticas. De esto último se encargó Eratóstenes de Cirene, director de la biblioteca de Alejandría que midió personalmente la circunferencia terrestre utilizando dos estacas, una colocada junto a la biblioteca y otra en Asuán, en el sur de Egipto. Los nuevos descubrimientos y el surgimiento de grandes imperios como los helenísticos o el romano que fomentaron el comercio poniendo en contacto a gentes de todo el mundo conocido, posibilitaron que esos primeros mapas fueran enriqueciéndose. Así es como apareció el primer atlas en el sentido moderno del término. Su autor, Ptolomeo, un griego nacido en Egipto, elaboró un compendio muy completo en ocho volúmenes dotado de índice de topónimos, coordenadas de latitud y longitud para localizar cualquier punto dentro del mapa, indicaciones con leyendas y la convención de situar el norte en la parte superior dejando el este a la derecha y el oeste a la izquierda. Esa convención ha llegado hasta nuestros días. El atlas de Ptolomeo fue la obra geográfica y cartográfica más elaborada durante más de mil años. Fue su mapa el que inspiró a Cristóbal Colón y a los navegantes del siglo XV a internarse en lo desconocido en busca de nuevas fronteras que no tardarían en encontrar acomodo en esos pequeños milagros de dos dimensiones llamados mapas. En El ContraSello: - Las ciudades devorándose a sí mismas - Nicolás II y Jorge V Bibliografía: - "El porqué de los mapas" de Eduard Dalmau - https://amzn.to/3Zq5oQi - "Grandes mapas de la historia" - https://amzn.to/452Wg5s - "Atlas fantasma: Grandes mitos, mentiras y errores de los mapas" de Edward Brooke Hitching - https://amzn.to/3rqn6qn - "En el mapa: De cómo el mundo adquirió su aspecto" de Simon Garfield - https://amzn.to/48orBSU · Canal de Telegram: https://t.me/lacontracronica · “Hispanos. Breve historia de los pueblos de habla hispana”… https://amzn.to/428js1G · “La ContraHistoria de España. Auge, caída y vuelta a empezar de un país en 28 episodios”… https://amzn.to/3kXcZ6i · “Lutero, Calvino y Trento, la Reforma que no fue”… https://amzn.to/3shKOlK · “La ContraHistoria del comunismo”… https://amzn.to/39QP2KE Apoya La Contra en: · Patreon... https://www.patreon.com/diazvillanueva · iVoox... https://www.ivoox.com/podcast-contracronica_sq_f1267769_1.html · Paypal... https://www.paypal.me/diazvillanueva Sígueme en: · Web... https://diazvillanueva.com · Twitter... https://twitter.com/diazvillanueva · Facebook... https://www.facebook.com/fernandodiazvillanueva1/ · Instagram... https://www.instagram.com/diazvillanueva · Linkedin… https://www.linkedin.com/in/fernando-d%C3%ADaz-villanueva-7303865/ · Flickr... https://www.flickr.com/photos/147276463@N05/?/ · Pinterest... https://www.pinterest.com/fernandodiazvillanueva Encuentra mis libros en: · Amazon... https://www.amazon.es/Fernando-Diaz-Villanueva/e/B00J2ASBXM #FernandoDiazVillanueva #mapas #cartografia Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

In this two-part episode our hosts, Cayla, Nathan, Halli and guest Courtney take a look at three cases of intrigue:Sentient World Simulation: Did you know that if you have ever had an online presence, there's a series of servers in Indiana where a digital version of you exists?The Voynich Manuscript: In The Madman's Library by Edward Brooke-Hitching, he describes the Voynich manuscript as "the most famous cryptic manuscript of the medieval period" that has been "the obsessive focus of study around the world and as of yet, none of the professional and amateur cryptographers - including American and British codebreakers of both World War I and World War II - has been able to crack it."Alchemy: Alchemy is an ancient practice one with obscure tangled roots that may go back a couple millennia BC. Much of alchemy's history is shrouded in mystery and cyphers, and is a practice that has repeatedly been banned throughout history and has faced many hurdles, yet still managed to find its way even to today.Pt.2Alchemyhttps://www.thehumanexception.com/l/file-0087-0088-the-alchemic-voynich-simulation/

In this two-part episode our hosts, Cayla, Nathan, Halli and guest Courtney take a look at three cases of intrigue:Sentient World Simulation: Did you know that if you have ever had an online presence, there's a series of servers in Indiana where a digital version of you exists?The Voynich Manuscript: In The Madman's Library by Edward Brooke-Hitching, he describes the Voynich manuscript as "the most famous cryptic manuscript of the medieval period" that has been "the obsessive focus of study around the world and as of yet, none of the professional and amateur cryptographers - including American and British codebreakers of both World War I and World War II - has been able to crack it."Alchemy: Alchemy is an ancient practice one with obscure tangled roots that may go back a couple millennia BC. Much of alchemy's history is shrouded in mystery and cyphers, and is a practice that has repeatedly been banned throughout history and has faced many hurdles, yet still managed to find its way even to today.Pt.1Sentient World SimulationThe Voynich Manuscripthttps://www.thehumanexception.com/l/file-0087-0088-the-alchemic-voynich-simulation/

From kaleidoscopic hellscapes to portraits of cannibals and flying monks, Edward Brooke-Hitching introduces some of the strangest creations in art history. Speaking to Ellie Cawthorne, he takes us on a tour around this ‘madman's gallery' of scandalous and eccentric works, including a painting created with pigment made from mummified remains, artworks inspired by contacting the dead, and family portraits created by an algorithm. (Ad) Edward Brooke-Hitching is the author of The Madman's Gallery: The Strangest Paintings, Sculptures and Other Curiosities From the History of Art (Simon & Schuster, 2022). Buy it now from Amazon:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Madmans-Gallery-Strangest-Sculptures-Curiosities/dp/1398503576/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-social-histboty Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Daniela Dröscher, Lügen über meine Mutter / Wolfgang Bauer, Am Ende der Straße / Antonio Munoz Molina, Tage ohne Cecilia / Hörbuch: Alex Capus, Susanna / Krimikolumne mit Edward Brooke-Hitching, Dennis Lehane, Sybille Ruge, das literarische Rätsel

Anthropodermic Bibliopegy is the process of binding a book in human skin.  Today we talk the history, and notable examples of this ghoulish practice.  Sources: "Thunder, Very Close, Rain, A.wav" by InspectorJ (www.jshaw.co.uk) of Freesound.orgThe Madman's LibraryKISS BloodSaddam's book clubAnthropodermic book scienceAnthropodermic bibliographyNarrative of the life of James Allen, alias George Walton, alias Jonas Pierce, alias James H. York, alias Burley Grove, the highwayman : being his death-bed confession, to the warden of the Massachusetts state prisonFate of the blenden hall Loose Transcript:Hi everyone, welcome to another fabulous episode of nightmare now! The show where we brave brutal books and bring out blasphemous bloody business for breaking up a banal bus ride or business meeting. Hope everyone is having a great week, mine's chaotic but at least I don't have polio. My laptop switched the microphone part way through the original recording so I went to edit and half of it sounded like I was screaming like a lunatic into walkie talkie in a tunnel, the other half sounded all messed up because I was using the wrong microphone. The audio is beyond my capabilities to repair without summoning some kind of audio demon so here we are talking about a cursed media. Again.  Work is still crazy and gets crazier by the day so I think for now I am going to move release days to thursday mornings starting next week, I hope to eventually get the research synthesis turnaround a lot faster as I streamline the workflow but for now I think doing the show on weeknights is gonna help with consistency and my sanity a lot more than procrastinating with the homies on the weekend and then trying to outline, record, edit and promote monday night till 3am. So keep an eye out next Thursday for next week's show. I think that's more than enough housekeeping stuff for now so let's just  dive right into it, Today we're talking about a crazy little thing called anthropodermic bibliopegy If you're up on your latin or history you may be able to figure out what that means, but if you're not it's the lovely art of bookbinding… with human skin. A practice with a wide reaching and surprising history. My main source today is the lovely coffee table book I received as a gift, from myself, The Madman's Library, by Edward Brooke Hitching. Luckily, or unluckily depending on who you ask the madman's library is just bound in regular old paper, whatever cardboard paste stuff they use to bind modern books. It's really cool, basically hitching was the son of an antique book collector and from a very early age fell in love with books, especially rare, unusual and unique books. Within its pages he collects and references hundreds of such books including ancient religious texts, giant dusty codices, bestiaries, grimoires and more, you could do a whole podcast on weird books alone, so we'll definitely be coming back to this one. One chapter in particular I want to highlight in our first foray into literary curiosities is the one entitled “Books made of Flesh and Blood” which immediately caught my eye. It starts off innocuous enough, with traditional books bound in cowhide or rabbit fur or snakeskin,  things like that, that were common practice since the dawn of book binding. From barely worked tanned hide to elaborate, ornate skin designs, there's a whole spectrum, but specifically we're looking at books bound in human skin but we we wouldn't be covering it on the show if I, I mean you the disturbed listener didn't want lovely Literally “hand” crafted journal, like made by hands from hands. Perhaps a tasteful nipple skin latch to keep your embarrassing thoughts about your crush truly secret from prying eyes. Ed Gein would probably have a couple of these laying around if he could read. So what would possess somebody to do this exactly? Well for one thing, it's a hell of a conversation piece. And it sends a hell of a message to boot. Oftentimes a book bound in human skin was a list of misdeeds of an executed criminal. It was sort of a punishment beyond death for the convicted and it saved a goat or cow, isn't that nice. You had the accounts of murderers crimes bound in the murderers own flesh which is metal as f**k and probably houses some insanely bad juju. It wasn't just murderers though, for example you had traitors getting the same treatment. Most of the time after death. Speaking of treatments that's a good segue. How do you take human skin and make it suitable to cover your fifth grade textbooks? Apparently there were 2 main ways of getting the skin ready. That's of course after you have the skin of the person. I can't get into the pretreatment because, well, there's more than one way to skin a person… If I reveal how many I know I feel like I'll get some calls from the FBI.  Anyway, once you have the skin, hopefully humanely sourced. You could soak it in lime water, take off the hair and chunks and goop afterwards, and just go to town with tannin compounds to tan the hide. The alternative is just to go the foul bachelor frog route and blast it with piss. A surprisingly versatile tool any problem solver needs in their metaphorical toolbox.The ammonia dissolves the fidddly chunks and pubes and guts  and gets it ready for stretching and drying. And if you're feeling real fancy, and you want a nice sheen and luster on the cover of your new skin book, all you had to do was give it a rubdown with a nice rustic stain varnish cocktail made by mixing dog dookie, bird poop and water. I mean if you're gonna do it, do it right I guess.  There's some great stories in here about notable examples of these books and the people that made them, and also the people they're made out of. The first one actually goes back to a previous episode, the one on Robert Liston, so check that one out for more info, alternatively, if you've got a time machine skip ahead a few months till when we do a deeper dive on burke and hare, resurrection men, and the body snatcher arms races. But the short version was that william burke and william hare were a pair of scumbag murderers, with a get rich quick scheme that was basically just cutting the natural death middle man out of the cadaver trade, murdering victims and selling the bodies for medical research, but when they were caught, partially thanks to our boy liston,  TIME ME GENTLEMEN! Again check that one out!  Hare I believe got some kind of squealer plea immunity deal or something to sell out Burke and get out of the hangman's noose himself. Naturally Burke wasn't so lucky. He was hanged for his crimes on january 28th 1829 and then immediately dissected and flayed. A fitting end for his crime spree of selling bodies for dissection. I don't remember that part of alanis morissete's ironic.They took the newly flayed skin and turned part of it into a wallet for the prison guard that kept an eye on him and they took more of the skin to put a complete document of the trial and evidence of his case in writing into a neat little skin book that currently resides in the surgeon's college in edinburgh along with his skeleton. They really used all the parts of this dude. This practice continued pretty much until it fell out of vogue in the late 1800s, it wasn't really as popular to be skinning and tanning human hide anymore, at least not outside of texas that is. There was one other notable criminal skin book that a friend mentioned to me when I brought this topic up. Thanks Gabe! He called my attention to a book currently housed in the boston athenaeum (a thuh nee um) called the Narrative of the Life of James Allen, alias Jonas Pierce, alias James H. York, alias Burley Grove, the Highwayman, Being His Death-bed Confession to the Warden of the Massachusetts State Prison. They really didn't care much for brevity back then, side note theres also a great chapter on weird book titles in the madman's library that make that one look like a haiku.  So james allen, aka jonas pierce, aka the highwayman ect ect was a highwayman. I guess that much is obvious but whatever. He was in the state prison in Massachusetts and his health was failing, he wasn't on death row or anything, just kind of old and sick and in jail. He knew he was on the way out and wrote down his death bed confession but here's where it gets weird. His last wish was that when he died, they use his skin to pind two copies of his f**king confession and memoirs. One would go to his prison doctor that was taking care of him at the end of his life and the other copy went to a John A. Fenno Jr. The story with him was that James Allen, being a highwayman, or maybe just a big johnny cash fan, tried to rob this guy at gunpoint years ago before he was in prison, and john was the only guy he robbed that ever fought back or resisted and James Allen found a weird admiration for that courage later in his life. The highwayman, James, actually shot the other guy John, but the bullet richotected off his suspender buckle or something and he survived. James Allen was so moved by this display of bravery in the face of certain death at his hands that when he died he had the other copy of his skin bound confession presented to John Fenno Jr. You gotta imagine waking up to get the mail back in the day walking out in your f**king bunny slippers and the post man stops by and is just like taop of the mornin to ye mr fenno, I gots me a parcel for ya from the state prison” you cautiously unwrap the sring on the package, hands trembling and it's just the memoirs of the guy that tried to murder you bound in his own skin with a little note that just says, “ you got scrote and I like the cut of your gib laddy”  like what do you even do? Th..thanks I guess and put it up on the shelf. Full disclosure I don't actually know what's in the book but I found an internet archive link to the full book if you want to know more, I'll throw that into the show notes at nightmarenow.com. Let me know if there's anything cool in there it's only like 40 pages or so. Later on fenno's daughter donated the book to the athenaeum after her father died and it has remained there ever since. This case has been pretty well documented and even was proven to be genuine man leather by an organization called the Anthropodermic Book Project. They were another cool source for this episode because these are the guys that test all these books  via peptide mass fingerprinting. This is a process where they take a tiny sample of the book digest it with enzymes and run the resulting digestate through a mass spec machine to compare the spectra of the peptides in the collagen in the skin from known values for mammals like goats, cows, deer and humans. For the non-lab science inclined they basically turn a piece of the skin into juice and run the juice through a machine that says what animal it is. Think karen from spongebob dissolving seaweed to find out it's 50% sea and 50% weed. Kinda like the turtle from finding nemo. One book was about pituitary issues causing gigantism or other hormonal abnormalities, and that was bound in the skin of a literal giant from a ringling bros circus standing eight foot six. There's not a whole lot of detail available on that particular case but at least it's on theme right?Like I said the whole human skin books industry started to collapse in the late eighteen hundreds but there are a few exceptions, this one's apocryphal but apparently some lady had a book binder wrap up their love letters in her dead husband. That was in f**king 1958! Again not a whole lot of detail on that one but there's at least an implied consent there.The earliest form of the practice is, of course, a bible. Dating back to at least the 1200s bound in the skin of a young woman. And I've seen enough criminal minds to know that this s**t probably still continues here and there to this very day.Another semi famous, yet non criminal case was of a huge, anonymous fan of camille flamarrion. A french author focusing on astronomy. Camille commented on how soft and smooth this gal's skin was and she was super into it. A real i f**king love science type broad. This is your typical nasa t shirt wearing neil degrasse tyson groupie type. That reminds me I need to send him a mean tweet for talking s**t about UFOs the other day. Anyway, this chick was pale and glamorous mostly because she had tuberculosis. Anyway she was about to kick the bucket from the consumption and her last wish was to HAVE HER SKIN DONATED TO HER FAVORITE SCIENTIST PERSONALITY. To be turned into his next masterwork.I guess there wasn't a whole lot of paperwork or government oversight in 1882 france, because and this is a direct quote. “In accordance with her wishes, her skin was taken by the celebrated Paris physician Dr Ravaud, who delivered the roll of skin to Flammarion's residence himself. He told Flammarion he had flayed the ‘marvellously attractive young woman', whose name he was forbidden from revealing, just ‘a few minutes after she passed on'.” unquote. After that a copy of camille's latest space novel was bound in her skin and theres actually a picture of it in the book, it's quite elegant.When I eventually release a patreon or something so I can quit my job I'll have notebooks in my own skin available to my highest tier subscribers in the event of my death. Seems like a fair tradeoff. That kinda closes the book on notable cases of human skin books, actually there's a copy of the french constitution bound with the skin of a revolutionary, but after that we've covered the flesh, but that's only half of flesh and blood. That's right you guys are lucking out today, because I have a whole second half of this topic. Books written in (Toccata) Human Blood… This might be a little bit easier or harder to stomach for people based on how you feel about blood. On the one hand you've got the fact that people didn't necessarily die to use their blood in a book, although I guess you could say the same for skin in modern times with skin grafts and whatever but I didn't find any evidence of that, that's pure speculation. But on the other hand it's blood and that makes some people flip out. If you're not into the blood, you probably haven't listened this far but also now is your last warning for avoiding a whole lot of slicing, quills in fingers and really metal manuscripts. If you gotta shut off the show, remember I'll see you on thursday instead of tuesday because I really can't do tuesday anymore famalam. I'm not fooling anyone saying I'm gonna be working on weekends, so it ends up me being up till three am outlining, recording and editing on monday, spreading those out over a few weekdays will lead to a much healthier mental state and workflow for me. Worst case you can delay listening and play it tuesday morning. I've spoken with a few listeners and it doesn't seem like this will be an issue. I'm also gonna take this week to pull together the facebook page because I've got family and friends asking for it. Thursdays at seven it is! I love you all! If you can stomach the blood let's get to in the second part of the show, what good are books bound with flesh if they don't have blood running through their inky veins?  We're talking books written in human blood.Now depending on how you feel about blood the books written in blood are generally less brutal than the ones bound in flesh. Based simply on the fact that getting blood is a lot easier on a person than getting their skin. It's much less damaging to prick your own finger and write in blood than it is to have your back flayed. You're much more likely to survive the former.What you find in blood writing pretty often is monks, are monks? That's a weird grammar thing. We'll go with is, what you find is a lot of monks. Monks gonna do monk things, so a lot of times they would copy manuscripts in their own blood as a form of piety. They would slice their fingertips, make little cuts on their chest or ugh slice under the tongue. Didn't they do that on jackass? That seems really f**king painful, not skinned painful but definitely unpleasant. It seems like the lighter the blood appeared on the page the more pure of heart the writer was so that's a neat little metric to test yourself with. And test themselves they did, draining blood from their fingers just to get another page done, there's some great pictures of these you can find online that you can see where on the page the coagulants in the blood actually started to clot on the page and then trail off and become lighter until the next prick to get more blood ink. It's really f**king cool in my opinion, interestingly some of the text that is copied in these blood manuscripts describes a pious buddha ripping off his own skin for paper, using his own blood for ink and snapping a finger bone for a quill. Like bro chill! I'll drive you to staples!Aside from monk manuscripts, of which, theres a lot of them, there's a few more crazy examples I want to get through. One of the most interesting is Saddam's Hussein's blood Qur'an. This is absolutely the most notable recent addition to the flesh and blood books. In 1997, Saddam Hussein as a nice little sixtieth birthday present to himself, commissioned, from a renowned scribe, a copy of the Qur'an written in his own blood. I guess eveyone goes through their rawr XD goth phase at different times. He said quote “My life has been full of dangers in which I should have lost a lot of blood but since I have bled only a little, I asked somebody to write God's words with my blood in gratitude.” unquote In a letter to the media a few years later in 2000. Reportedly he was hooked up to exsanguinate around 27 liters of blood, not all at once, to be mixed in with ink, to write out the three hundred and thirty six thousand words in the Qur'an. So after a few years this was actually achieved, whether it's actually all his blood might be up for debate but they did produce a Qur'an written in his blood. Needless to say, Saddam's lucky to not be losing a lot of blood line really didn't age well. The quote “war on terror” clownfest started and we're gonna yadda yadda yadda all that and by 2006 Saddam was executed for his war crimes. Interestingly enough, I came across  in my research that in addition to all the f**ked up s**t he did as the dictator of Iraq, he still had time to write FOUR f**king novels? ROMANCE NOVELS? About a medieval Iraqi leader falling in forbidden love with a beautiful girl. Allegorical to represent the Iraqi people while he seduced her in spite of her husband, read as the USA. I guess his rawr XD phase was longer than we thought. The others were historical fiction, and one included a particularly ham fisted scene where the hero destroys two towers in the land of christians and jews. Not touching that one. I guess he's not exactly a role model, but it  really says something about making the time for your creative pursuits even if your'e erm… busy with your job and responsibilities. What's interesting from my admittedly limited understanding of the islamic faith, it's blasphemy to produce a Qur'an in this manner, and another blasphemy to destroy a Qur'an no matter how it was made so the state of saddam's blood Qur'an is in a weird catch 22 where it shouldn't exist but nobody wants to destroy it. As far as I can tell now it's scattered in a few vaults in Iraqi government buildings. Phew, really hope I didn't offend anybody there. Obligatory I love all my listeners. Now, MOVING ON. Marvel comics did a limited run KISS comic 1977 that they mixed in a vial of all the band member's blood into the ink in the printing factory at marvel. So that happened, a little bit more of a sensational marketing gimmick but it's verified and worth including. That one is kind of hilarious in it's own right without me editorializing, especially if you're familiar with the more idiotic ways KISS has merchandized. I'll put a link to the KISS KASKET in the show notes for the uninitiated. Lastly we've got one that isn't actually written in human blood per se, but the original copy of Fate of the Blenden Hall, was a diary written about the harrowing shipwreck ideal of the crew of the blenden hall, by its Captain Alexander Greig. The problem was that while a desk and paper washed up like it was a cartoon, there was no ink. He had to keep a record as his captain's duties so he needed to make do with the next best thing. His 82 day account of the survivors of the wreck, including illustrations, was done entirely in penguins blood. Damn, talk about unhappy feet. Shipwrecks though, now that's a great topic!That's what I got today guys, it's good to be back! Again sorry I skipped a week but I think changing up the release is the best thing to do, it was totally arbitrary to begin with and this will give me a couple more weekdays to get s**t done instead of just doing research on the weekend and trying to do all the rest on mondays. Thank you all so much for all your support, it means the world to me and I can't wait to keep the show going in perpetuity. For updates, show notes, memes, banter or anything else you might need, check out nightmarenow.com for links to the rest of the socials. You guys are the best, I'll see you on thursday! I'd say sweet dreams, but we all know it's only gonna be nightmares now! 

My review of Edward Brooke-Hitching's book, "Phantom Atlas: The Greatest Myths, Lies and Blunders on Maps."Music © by Capazunda.

Edward Brooke-Hitching explores the many heavens, hells and lands of the dead from civilisations across global history Edward Brooke-Hitching speaks to Charlotte Hodgman about his latest book, The Devil's Atlas: An Explorer's Guide to Heavens, Hells and Afterworlds, exploring visions of the afterlife as imagined throughout history by cultures and religions around the world. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We started with a question about types of books. But after answering it, there was a whole lot of episode left to go. Fortunately, we ran across a book that helped us talk about other books, in particular, the very interesting books in a xylothek. But first, as we always do, there was some explanation to be had about where they came from and why they existed in the first place. Along the way, we meet some important renaissance figures. You can get The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History by Edward Brooke-Hitching on Amazon. Your support is appreciated. See our support page to offer yours.

Books written in blood, poisonous books, and edible books are just three of the topics covered in this episode. We are joined by Edward Brooke-Hitching, the author of The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and other Literary Curiosities from History, who also explains about a book made from slices of cheese and numerous other literary oddities. This is a podcast episode devoted to the weird, unusual and eccentric.

Maps from Medieval Europe are littered with strange lands, monsters and mythical races. On them you can find the Tower of Babel, the Minotaur's Labyrinth, unicorns and men with the heads of dogs. Find out what these maps can tell us about how medieval European's saw the world in the latest episode of the History and Folklore Podcast.    Sources: B.L Gordon, 'Sacred Directions, Orientations, and the Top of the Map' History of Religions Vol. 10, No. 3 (Feb., 1971), pp. 211-227 British Museum, 'Tablet' https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1882-0714-509 Chet Van Durez, 'Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps' (2014). Edward Brooke-Hitching, 'The Phantom-Atlas: The Greatest Myths, Lies and Blunders on Maps' (2016). Gerhard Dorhn-van Rossum 'Al-Idrisi and His World Map (1154)' (2011) http://www.cliohworld.net/onlread/wg2/wg2.pdf#page=209 Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping, 'History of Mapping' https://www.icsm.gov.au/education/fundamentals-mapping/history-mapping John Block-Friedman, 'The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought' (2000). John Mandeville, 'The Complete Works of John Mandeville (Shrine of Knowledge, 2020) 'Mappa Mundi Hereford Cathedral.' https://www.themappamundi.co.uk/ Paul B. Sturtevant, 'A Wonder of the Multicultural Medieval World: The Tabula Rogeriana' (2017) https://www.publicmedievalist.com/greatest-medieval-map/ Richard Barber, 'Bestiary MS Bodley 764' (1999). Richard Jones, 'The Medieval Natural World' (2013). Robert Bartlett, 'The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages' (2006). Thomas Wright, 'Travels of Marco Polo, the Venetian.' http://public-library.uk/ebooks/60/81.pdf   Transcript: ‘Whatever Part of the Earth that Men dwell, either above or beneath, it seemeth always to them, that they go more up-right than any other Folk. And right as it seemeth to us that they be under us, right so it seemeth to them that we be under them.'   Hello, welcome to the History and Folklore podcast, where we look at different folk beliefs through history and how these beliefs shape people's perceptions of nature. Today we're looking at historical maps and the strange creatures and the mythical races found within them. This is a huge subject, so I am only going to be able to really give an overview of the subject, but am happy to make more indepth episodes on any of the different topics if there is any interest.   I find this topic really fascinating as maps, despite what we like to tell ourselves, very rarely show the world how it actually is. Instead they are excellent sources to show us the preconceptions, assumptions and prejudices of the map maker and the society the map is made in.    It has also been claimed that maps can affect the perception of people who view the map. We like to tell ourselves that maps are entirely neutral records of landscapes and settlements but this is not entirely true. Even today there are issues with our world map that are believed to affect  the way we see the world. The most well-known example is the Mercator Projection, invented in 1569 as a way of displaying a globe on a 2D surface. Because of the way the projection works, countries at the top are distorted to become larger, while those closer to the equator appear smaller. The creator of this method, Gerardus Mercator, also chose to orientate the map with North at the top, which is the way we still orientate maps today. It has been argued that, while this map is useful for navigation, the location and relatively large size of northern countries gives them a more prominent place in the mind of the viewer.   While there is still a lot of discussion as to whether this is actually true, it is clear that maps have traditionally been used as a means of communicating ideas and values to the viewer. The earliest maps that survive today depict very local places that highlight sites of interest. There were no real conventions in cartography yet and so the layout and orientation of these maps was pretty much all over the place.    While it seems normal and obvious to us, it is only really quite recently in human history that maps have been oriented with North at the top. In Europe, East was often placed as the highest point as in early Christian tradition heaven was located in the east. This is an idea that was likely borrowed from ancient Jewish traditions which saw the east as a particularly holy direction. Likewise, South was often seen as a desirable direction as it was associated with warmer, more hospitable weather. North, on the other hand, was considered a dark and sinister direction.   Ancient Egyptians also tended to orientate maps with east at the top, as this is the direction in which the sun rises. Early Islamic cartographers often placed south at the top of the map, as these mapmakers often resided in countries that were north of Mecca and they envisioned they were looking up towards it when they prayed. In Ancient China, compasses were oriented to point south, which was considered a more desirable direction as it was believed to be where the winds came from. However, maps in ancient China tended to place north at the top as the Emperor resided in the north of the country and the people were expected to look towards him. So it appears that there is a tendency among people everywhere to place that which they consider the most important at the top or centre of the image.    The oldest surviving world map is the Imago Mundi, which was created between 500-700 BCE in a town called Sippar in Iraq. This map placed Babylon in the centre, as this was probably the most important city to the map maker. The Euphrates is also shown and circles surround Babylon to show other cities and districts, including Assyria, Der and Habban. These cities are surrounded by a circular ‘bitter river' in which other districts are located. These represent the unknown or unexplored world, and are labelled with descriptions such as ‘where shamash (the sun deity) is not seen, reflecting the belief that the sun does not pass through the northern lands. The map is accompanied by accounts of Babylonian myths, written in conform script, with the corresponding locations in which they happened.    Early medieval maps are remarkably similar in design to the Imago Mundi. Known as TO maps, they show the world as a round disc. Inside this disc the known world is split into three segments, with the East orientated at the top. Asia fills up the top half of the circle, and is separated from Europe in the bottom left quarter and Africa in the bottom right quarter by a river that starts as the Don or Tanais in the left and turns into the Nile half way through. Europe and Africa are separated by the meditteranean sea, depicted as a line that meets the rivers at the half way point to make a T shape. The rivers and continents are surrounded by a circle of sea, the O of the TO map.    It is unclear where this style of map originated from. Similarities can be drawn with the Imago Mundi, but some historians think that they may originate in the Ancient Greece or Rome. Others argue that they probably have a Judaic origin, due to the habit of labelling each continent in association with one of Noah's sons - Asia often has the label of Shem, Africa is labelled with Ham and Europe tagged with Japhet.    TO maps are only concerned with recording areas of the world that were known to be habitable. Maps that showed all habitable and uninhabitable land on the globe were portrayed in a different way, based on the subdivision of the world created by Ptolemy in the second century and built on by Macrobius in the fifth century. In this, the world was divided into five latitudinal zones that varied in climate. The poles were the two frigid zones and considered to be too cold to sustain life. The fiery zone was located at the equator and was too hot to sustain life. Between these two extremes were the temperate zones, which were both theoretically habitable although it was believed that the southern temperate zone was uninhabited by humans.    The subdivision of the world in this way was still being used as late as the fifteenth century. It was also used as the basis for maps created by influential Islamic geographers and cartographers, such as al-Muqaddasi and al-Biruni, who developed this technique and further broke the inhabited world down into seven climes, which differed by half an hour each. These cartographers also believed that only the northern part of the world was inhabited and was separated by the rest of the globe by inhospitable climates that could not be crossed by humans. Islamic scholar Abu Rayhan al-Biruni claimed that the ‘sea separates the inhabitable world from whatever continents or inhabitable islands there may be beyond it, both towards West and East; for it is not navigable on account of the darkness of the air and the thickness of the water.'   This method of dividing the world was used in what was the most influential map of its time, the Tabulana Rogeriana, translated in English as the ‘Book of Roger', which proves that everything sounds more impressive in Latin. This was created by Muhammad al-Idrisi in 1154 for King Roger II of Siciliy in a book containing 70 smaller regional maps which, when put together, created a huge rectangular map of the world. This incredibly detailed map was broken down into seven different climatic zones and ten geographical sections. As well as this al-Idrisi was able to calculate the circumference of the globe within ten percent of its actual size. To achieve this, al-Idrisi poured over Arabic, Latin and Classical records, as well as conducting extensive interviews with contemporary travellers, endeavouring to dismiss the fantastical and include only what could be corroborated or proven. While this technique was not foolproof, and popular mythical elements such as the islands of Gog and Magog were still included, it was by far the most accurate world map of its day, and was used and distributed for three hundred years after its creation.   Despite the creation and popularity of the Book of Roger, new maps continued to be made and distributed. One of the most well-known today is the Hereford Mappa Mundi, which was created around the year 1300. This was created at a time when European maps were becoming more complex, showing serrated coastlines and individual islands. Despite these details, it still keeps the early ‘TO' format with Asia at the top, Europe on the bottom left and Africa on the bottom right. Christ sits above the world, looking over God's creation, and paradise and the garden of Eden can be found just below him. Jerusalem sits prominently in the centre of the inhabited world.    As well recording existing cities and landscape elements we would expect to see on modern maps, the Hereford Mappa Mundi also depicts stories from the bible such as Eden, Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel, all located in the top half of the map, as well as stories from Classical Greece and Rome. The columns of Hercules, the golden fleece and the labyrinth can all be seen on the map. This reflects a method of map making that leaned more towards symbolism than accuracy. The purpose of maps such as this was not to create an accurate geographical record to assist travellers. They were instead created the greatness and expanse of God's creation and the viewers place within it spatially, culturally, temporally and spiritually. Medieval maps were created to measure time and culture as well as space.    For this reason the anomalies in early maps can give a real insight into the mindset, worldview and values of the time. We already know that places like Eden and the Minotaur's labyrinth were placed on maps due to their spiritual, cultural and historical importance. But some other elements are less easily explained. Strange islands and creatures pepper the seas and the margins of early maps.    Sometimes these were recorded through simple error, especially non-existant islands and land formations. Other times weather conditions such as low forming clouds could appear to sailors as an island, which would later be recorded on maps. Anomalies were sometimes included on purpose as a type of copyright protection. If an incorrect detail was found on a different map, the original cartographer would know they had been plagiarised.    I think the most amusing incidents were when islands were included on a whim. In 1659 Peter Helyn recorded a story about the explorer Pedro Sarmiento when he was captured by Walter Raleigh. Raleigh asked him about a particular island that was depicted on one of his maps, which Raleigh had never seen but which may have had some tactical advantage to him. Sarmiento explained that that island was known as ‘painters island' because when the painter was drawing the map, his wife asked him to add an island for her, so that in her imagination she could have an island of her own. A really lovely story, but not very helpful to people trying to actually navigate.   I think that the monsters and so called monstrous races that were recorded in maps, bestiaries and encyclopedias of the time are even more interesting than mysterious island stories as they raise so many questions about medieval assumptions of the foreign, otherness and humanity itself.    Strange creatures were also often believed to be found in far flung lands. Dragons fought elephants in India, hyenas mimicked and ate humans in Africa, leopards were the ferocious offspring of lions and pards and birds the colour of fire and with razor sharp wings soar through the air in Asia. These creatures all give an impression of foriegn countries as strange and dangerous places to be, as though the further you get from the known world the more fantastic and deadly nature becomes, a reflection of understandable anxieties and real dangers involved in travel during this period.    Probably the most fascinating are the so called ‘monstrous races' that are depicted on the edges of world maps, reflecting their perceived status as being just on the edge of civilisation.  Many of these races were taken from the writings of Pliny the Elder and were even further embellished over the years by explorers and traders, missionaries and pilgrims who would come back with tales of the strange lands, creatures and people they had seen on their travels.  Monstrous races that were commonly recorded included the Blemmyes, a warlike people found in Africa, notable in that they had no head but whos faces were instead located on their torso. Sciapods could be found in India. They had only one leg which they would use to hop about, and would use their one giant foot to shade them from the sun. Panotti had long ears that they used to wrap around themselves to keep warm at night. The Astomis were found by the Ganges river, they had no mouths but gained nourishment through pleasant smells. The cynocephalli were humans with the heads of dogs that were widely recorded from Scandinavia to Syria to India. In some accounts they were depicted as bloodthirsty fighters, while other writers claimed they were relatively shy and kept to themselves in peaceful communities.    While some believe that these people were solely the creation of overactive imaginations and tall tales spun by travellers, others think that there may have been a grain of truth in the stories, filtered through the perceptions of reporters trying to understand what they saw through the filter of a very ethnocentric worldview. For example, the Sciapods may have simply been people practicing yoga, lifting their feet above their heads as though to shade from the sun. While the true origins of these stories is not known, the fact that the stories exist at all raise a lot of interesting insights into the medieval European worldview.   There was a fair amount of contemporary discussion as to whether any of these races could be considered human, or whether they were closer to animals. This debate was based on the medieval Christian worldview that God created three different types of living spirit. Angels, which are not bound to a physical body, humans which are bound to a physical body but do not die with it and animals, which are bound to a physical body and who die with the body. It was believed that what separated humans from animals was their rationality. The issue then lay in defining and identifying rationality in the behaviour of the monstrous races.    The answer to this question had practical as well as theological implications. In the ninth century a missionary in Scandinavia wrote to a monk named Ratramnus asking whether he should preach to the dog headed people in order to win human souls for Christ, or whether it would be wasted effort, akin to trying to convert mice or birds. Ratramnus responded by stating that the dog heads should be viewed as human. He claimed that while certain elements of their behaviour, such as their barking speech, pointed more towards the animal, other behavioural aspects placed them firmly in the realms of the human. The fact they covered themselves with clothes showed they had a sense of shame and decency. They could farm and make tools and, according to Ratramnus, ‘knowledge of technical skills is granted only to the rational soul.' The main point in their favour though was that they lived in communities and therefore had laws and were able to create and keep to the rules of society.   Personally I find Ratramnus' answer unstatisying when looking at perceptions of other mythical creatures. Trolls, for example, were considered different from humans as they were not Christians and were, in fact, often believed to be angels that had remained neutral in the war between God and Satan and so fell to earth. Trolls could be killed and it was not believed that they had the promise of eternal life, as humans did. However, like other hidden people, they were portrayed as rational, they lived in societies that mimicked humans, wore clothes and used tools. It was not rationality or mortality, but lack of Chritian belief and immortal soul that separated the trolls from humans or angels, but Ratramnus made no suggestion of this possibility for the cynocephalli.   During the twelfth century Europe and Asia became linked in a way that it had never been before, largely due to the expansion of the Mongol Empire that spanned from Korea to Persia, Poland to Vietnam. This overarching administration facilitated merchants trading across borders and was also a tempting target for Christian missionaries, as the Mongols were not originally Muslim and appeared to be widely accepting of Christianity - employing Asian Christians as advisors and administrators.   As such a greater number of Europeans than ever before began travelling to places that they previously had either non-existent or very weak contact with. You may think that as explorers, traders and missionaries came to be more familiar with distant lands, and as travellers from across Asia came to be a more familiar sight in European cities, that medieval Europeans would quickly realise that the monstrous races on maps and monsters in bestiaries did not exist. In some cases doubt did begin to creep in. In 1253 William of Rubruck recalled a conversation he had with a group of Mogul people during his travels in India saying ‘I asked about the monsters or monstrous humans but they had never seen such beings, wherefore we wonder very much whether it were true.'   But belief in monsters and monstrous races was surprisingly tenacious amongst the general population. This was partly because returning travellers could not resist telling fantastic tales of ferocious and strange beasts to impress people back home. However, even when travellers wanted to present a more realistic view of the world their efforts could be undermined. Marco Polo's Travels, for example, was published in 1298 and presented a fairly subdued and down to earth picture of Asia that was somewhat sabotaged by illustrators who added monsters and wonders to the margins, likely trying to meet the expectations of the readers.   In other cases, when monsters were not found where they were expected to be, it was sometimes assumed that they did exist but their location had been recorded wrong. As European travellers became more familiar with the wider world the monstrous races were pushed further, always pushed the edges of the known world, and those that were once believed to reside in India were later thought to reside in the habitable southern hemisphere, where humans did not live. An early example of this was the Panotti people with long ears. Around 43 CE Roman writer Pomponius Mela claimed they lived on the Orkney islands. When the Orkney islands became part of the civilised world they were recorded as living in Scythia and later, when Scythia was no longer considered particularly distant, it was believed that they resided in southern Asia.    It is probable that the belief in monstrous races reflects a need in people to create a recognised ‘other' against which they can define themselves. Through these stories, they were able to explore what it meant to be civilised, what it meant to be human and understand and define their place in the world.    It is also apparent that this belief in strange and monstrous races was not just limited to Europeans. John de Marignollis  travelled extensively through China and India in the 1330s. Although he was originally sent by the Pope he extended his travels in order to search for the monstrous races he had heard about. He wrote ‘I travelled through all the provinces of India with great curiosity. . . never was I able to track down such peoples in the world in reality; instead people asked me whether there were such creatures.'    As well as giving the impression that medieval Asia was filled with people wandering round asking each other if they knew where the dog-heads were, de-Marignollis statement, and the quote from John Mandeville at the beginning of this episode, suggests that people around the world created their own kinds of strange and monstrous people, living in far away lands. I think it is likely that such stories were important in helping people strengthen their identity at a time of increased travel and exploration. Through these tales people could examine who they were, who belonged to their group, who were outside it and why. They could even be used to examine what it meant to be human at all.    Thank you for listening to this episode of the History and Folklore podcast. I hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting. An extra thank you goes to my new patreons DD Storyteller, the Fairy Folk Podcast, Louise, Vanessa, Ben and John. My supporters on patreon help make these episodes possible and I am so grateful.  If you would like to support the History and Folklore Podcast tiers range from £1-£5 a month in exchange for benefits including early access to podcast episodes, a monthly zine with more information about the episode topic, chance to vote on episode topics, recorded folktales and how to train your house elf fact files. Patrons help pay towards the cost of running the podcast and are greatly appreciated. You can also follow the podcast on Instagram at history and folklore, twitter at HistoryFolklore and Facebook at the History and Folklore podcast where I post hopefully interesting history and folklore facts pretty much daily and answer any questions or feedback. Thank you so much for listening, and I look forward to seeing you next time.

Edward Brooke-Hitching has rare books running through his veins. His new book The Madman's Library delves into the world of unusual tomes, from a Koran written in the blood of Saddam Hussein to a book so small it's invisible to the eye.

Edward Brooke-Hitching has rare books running through his veins. His new book The Madman's Library delves into the world of unusual tomes, from a Koran written in the blood of Saddam Hussein to a book so small it's invisible to the eye.

Bruce Shapiro brings us the latest from Biden's America, Don Weatherburn discusses the dramatic decline in Australia's crime rate and Edward Brooke-Hitching curates a library of bizarre books.

Bruce Shapiro brings us the latest from Biden's America, Don Weatherburn discusses the dramatic decline in Australia's crime rate and Edward Brooke-Hitching curates a library of bizarre books.

British author and rare book expert Edward Brooke-Hitching trawls through the history of literature, hunting down the strangest books ever written. His decade-long research has uncovered scores of bizarre tomes down the ages including Captain Cook’s ‘atlas of cloth’, a Qur’an written in the blood of Saddam Hussein and a book so small it’s invisible to the human eye. 

Edward Brooke-Hitching discusses some of history’s strangest literary curiosities, from hoax manuscripts to tomes bound in human skinEdward Brooke-Hitching discusses his book The Madman’s Library, which tells the stories of some of history’s strangest literary curiosities, from hoax manuscripts and books of demonology to volumes written in blood or bound in human skin. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Die erste Schrift, die der Mensch las, war jene am Himmelszelt. Das zeigen die Pyramiden von Gizeh ebenso wie das britische Stonehenge. Von ihrer Entzifferung erzählt Edward Brooke-Hitching in seinem faszinierend bebilderten Sachbuch.

Was bedeutet Freundschaft? Und was ist an Gespenstern gut? Nadia Budde stellt in ihren Bilderbüchern die großen Fragen für die ganz Kleinen. Und begeistert Kinder und Erwachsene. Außerdem: Wolfram Eilenberger und Edward Brooke-Hitching.

Voici l'histoire de Gregor MacGregor, militaire écossais peu farouche, reconverti en Prince de Poyais, pays imaginaire qu'il a réussi à vendre à des personnes bien réelles, jusqu'à mener 250 colons britanniques à leur perte. (Ah et à un moment il cause une crise économique en Angleterre.)  Retrouvez Crapules sur Twitter :  https://twitter.com/CrapulesStudio   Musiques de fond par Kevin MacLeod  Sources : Sketch of the Mosquito Shore, Thomas Strangeways, 1822  The Phantom Atlas: The Greatest Myths, Lies and Blunders on Maps, Edward Brooke-Hitching, 2016 Truth: A Brief History of Total Bullsh*t, Tom Philips, 2019 The conman who pulled off history's most audacious scam, Maria Konnikova, BBC, 2016

Review of The Phantom Atlas: The Greatest Myths, Lies and Blunders on Maps, by Edward Brooke-Hitching

Monocle Reads: Edward Brooke-Hitching is an award-winning director of documentaries that examine the eccentric side of British life. As well as writing for the UK TV programme ‘QI’, he is the author of international bestsellers ‘The Phantom Atlas’ and ‘The Golden Atlas’. Georgina Godwin talks to him about his latest book, ‘Sky Atlas: The Greatest Maps, Myths and Discoveries of the Universe’.

Find out the writing and reading habits of this week's authors. Cressida is the multi million selling creator of How To Train Your Dragon. And Edward has compiled a book of maps which chart the rise of exploration. They talk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Cressida Cowell is the multi million selling creator, author and illustrator of How To Train Your Dragon. Her latest book is the second in the Wizards Of Once series. Edward Brooke-Hitching is the author of the critically acclaimed books The Phantom Atlas and Fox Tossing, Octopus Wrestling and Other Forgotten Sports . The son of Franklin Brooke-Hitching, collector of the largest and most comprehensive library of British exploration and discovery ever accumulated, he is also a writer for the BBC series QI and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. His latest book is The Golden Atlas - charting the evolution of maps and exploration. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Når man hører ordet "Brasil" går tankene fort i retning regnskog og fotball. Det man sannsynligvis ikke tenker på er øya ved samme navn rett utenfor Irlands kyst..   ________________________________   Og sist men ikke minst, UFO-kartet:   Videre lesing: “The Phantom Atlas” av Edward Brooke-Hitching  "Great Maps" av Jerry Brotton  "Atlas over u-oppdagede øyer" av Malachy Tallack "Mysterious Celtic Mythology in American Folklore" av Bob Curran “Atlantis rising magazine” November/Desember 2011 av J. Douglas Kenyon “Celtic myth and legend” av Charles Squire. 

Se for deg at noen plutselig finner ut at en elv som Amazonas ikke finnes? Eller fjellet Kilimanjaro? Eller kanskje landet Turkmenistan? En ganske absurd tanke, er det ikke? Og du tenker sikkert at det ikke er mulig - men har du vært der og sett selv? Kanskje ikke, men du har jo sett på kart at de finnes! Kart, ja.. Hvordan påvirker kart tankegangen vår? For her kommer historien om den kanskje største kart-tabben noensinne.. - - - - - - For Peutingers kart, eller Tabula Peutingeriana, trykk på linken under. Bildet var rett og slett for bredt for å få inkludert her. Evt: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/TabulaPeutingeriana.jpg Men her er Kongfjellene: Anbefalt lesing: - “'From the best authorities': The mountains of Kong in the cartography of West Africa”, Journal of African history (1991). Av Thomas J. Bassett og Phillip W. Porter.  - “The Phantom Atlas” av Edward Brooke-Hitching  - "Great Maps" av Jerry Brotton For spørsmål eller tilbakemeldinger: cakonglund@gmail.com  

Andrew Marr visits the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge to meet the oldest non-archaeological artefact in England, which is the oldest surviving illustrated Latin Gospel in the world - the sixth century Gospel of Saint Augustine. The Librarian Christopher de Hamel tells the stories of rare and beautiful manuscripts which have crisscrossed Europe for hundreds of years at the whim of power politics, religion and social change, but even now have secrets that are yet to be discovered. The musician and broadcaster Lucie Skeaping has also turned detective in her study of the Elizabethan jig - a popular and bawdy play set to music - where only fragments of parchment and clues to the tunes remain. Edward Brooke-Hitching uncovers the myths, lies and blunders which have plagued the cartographers of old, with his book of early maps. Mythical sea monsters, fabled mountain ranges, even phantom islands have all been written into the atlas of the world. Producer Katy Hickman.

May 6, 2016 - It’s History in Five Friday, presented by Simon & Schuster. Our guest is Edward Brooke-Hitching, and his book is the quirky Fox Tossing, Octopus Wrestling and Other Forgotten Sports. From Flagpole Sitting (can't imagine why it ever fell out of fashion) to Hot Cockles, time-travel through the most curious, dangerous and downright bizarre sports and pastimes that mankind has ever devised, tried, and realized were quietly best forgotten. The son of an antiquarian book dealer, Edward Brooke-Hitching became an award-winning documentary director making films that examine the eccentric side of British life. For more, visit EdwardBrookeHitching.com, or follow @FoxTosser on Twitter. Simon & Schuster’s History in Five Friday. It’s the perfect way to kick off your modern weekend…with people from the past.

Martha Frankel’s guests this week are Chip Kidd, Michael Ruhlman, Edward Brooke-Hitching and Jessica Tom.