Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I absolutely loved "The Professor and the Madman", and generally love small, off-beat non-fiction stories like that one. This book reminded me a lot of "Longitude" which I also enjoyed. However, this book doesn't live up to either of those works.I got the impression that Winchester didn't have enough to say about the basic story, and a large portion of the book felt like filler material. I'd recommend passing on it and reading one of the other books.
Rating:
Summary: John McPhee Should Have Written This Book
Review: This is a nice, somewhat interesting book, that could have been great. Here's a short list (four out of at least thirty things) the author should have done, but didn't. 1) He should have written some poetic, illuminating passages about just how friggen immense geologic time is--and how great the time span covered by the rocks in William Smith's map is. 2) The author laments the fact that Smith's diary descriptions of the English countryside, should and could have been better written, a travelogue of sorts--but the author's own descriptions of England are rather lackluster. 3) There are no photos of William Smith or his young nymphomaniac wife. (Were they ugly or pretty?) 4) There is little humor or irony in this book. So many British writers are screamingly funny to read, with their pithy, incisive, low-amplitude observations but I'm half way through the book and haven't emitted so much as a chuckle. (I keep putting it down in favor of my latest issue of the Guardian.) Basically, if you subscribe to Scientific American, took an introductory geology class in college and scratch your head wondering why so much daily media/printed news is wasted on business and the stock market, then you'll probably like this book. If not, don't buy it.
Rating:
Summary: Do you like rocks??
Review: more in common with another recent best-seller of the literary non-fiction genre - Dava Sobel's 'Longitude'. Both books tell the story of an Englishman beset by hindrances and misunderstanding on their quest to unlocking the secrets of Natural Science. Winchester's book is about William Smith, a man who created the first geological map of England, and ostensibly the first geological map ever. Smith's story is one of hardships - orphaned early, without a formal education, Smith managed to achieve his goal even though he married a 'madwoman', was overlooked by the upper-classes and was forever worrying about money. These aspects of the story are quite interesting. But Winchester includes a lot of information about the geology of England, which in places gets a bit tedious for a reader that is not all that interested in rocks. Another annoying thing with this book is the use of asterisks - Winchester puts a lot of his information in footnotes at the bottom of the page, which is okay when used sparingly, but there are sections when 3 pages in every 4 use this! That said, this book is worth plugging through to see what happens at the end. And perhaps some readers will find the sections on geology fascinating. But this book is not really as good as the two mentioned in the first paragraph. If you are a fan of Winchester, or of English history, you will enjoy this book. Otherwise I would suggest that you look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Tough to get through
Review: This book summarizes William Smith's life into about 300 pages. I believe it could have been done in about a 1/3 of that. This book abuses the footnote style and could have used a much better editor. Mr. Winchester did use many words that I wasn't familiar with but in general I like that! My advice: Unless you are a geology buff then wait for the Cliff notes.
Rating:
Summary: 18th century prose does not do justice to Smith's
Review: I was very disappointed in this book having read The Professor and the Madman. A good editor is badly needed. I was interested in knowing more about Smith's seminal contributions to geological theory, so I made my way through the whole book. However, the convoluted prose made it most unenjoyable and less enlightening than it could be. I found sentence structures reminded me of 18th century novels. This is not my idea of a 21st century biography. The repetitive obsession with the 'class struggle' could easily be eliminated and cut out at least 1/3 in poorly constructed sentences and padded narrative development. Sure, Smith lived at a time when 'class' distinctions were a dominant preoccupation in Britain. Yes, Smith managed to accomplish quite a lot in spite of it, but the reader does not need to be bombarded by the same or similar information about this in every chapter.
Rating: 
Summary: geo
Review: An interesting novel of a man's sacrifice and perserverance to pursue his life's passion. a historical tract thru early english time
Rating: 
Summary: B-O-O-R-I-N-G + Poorly Written = Avoid this book!
Review: The Professor and the Madman achieved literary excellence with a focused and lively narrative coupled with word economy. This book pales beside its predecessor ... tangential, verbose, unlively and appears not to have been proofed. For example, on p. 123 there is a sentence of 79 words diced-up with 6 commas which comprise an entire nonsensical paragraph. This is typical for the story line is repeatedly doused with dead prose and thoughtless writing. In summary, this book is B-O-O-R-I-N-G and poorly written. John McPhee's writing deteriorated with geologic essays ... will the same happen to Winchester?
Rating:
Summary: Slow going
Review: How the map changed the world was hyperbole of the highest order. I expected much more especially a clearer explanation of that claim. Mr. Winchester's penchant for repetition, over use of footnotes,inclusion of non-illuminating illustrations (i.e. map of London prisons)and hero worship were distractions. A well edited more clearly focused article probably could have covered the subject more than adequately and would have made for much livelier reading. I found the descriptions of English life in Mr. Smith 's time very interesting - the snobbery, infrastructure, debtor prisons, ignorance, etc. The book while no page turner is worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Good pulp history
Review: All to often in science students get bogged down in the theory without an effort to understand the historical context (figures and setting) of its discovery. This is not trivial because the tale of discovery is often illustrative of the reasoning essential to "do good science" and something not easily taught. A good history of scientific discovery thus is worth its weight in gold. Unfortunately, Mr. Winchester's work falls short of the mark. This book is popular history at its finest including the historical asides to figures ancillary to the story, but fails to address adequately the reasoning used by William Smith in preparing the geologic map of England. The curious reader will marvel at the prodigous efforts, misfortunes and ultimate triumph of William "Strata" Smith, but will come away feeling slighted intellectually because his thought process remains a mystery.
Rating:
Summary: Geologist's Dream - Readers Beware
Review: "The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology," by Simon Winchester, proved to be a bit of a disappointment. It's a wonderful book, and I'm sure for those who make their life in geology it's an excellent read, but for me it was a let down. The problem may be that Winchester is too good a writer, or too accurate a biographer, to put down any details of which he's not 100% certain. Add to that the fact that the source materials focus on William Smith's professional work almost to the exclusion of any personal detail, and you have what should be a compelling personal journey that winds up reading more like a geology text in too many chapters. Smith's place in history was assured by his 1815 publication of a map of England showing the geological strata and graphically demonstrating his theories that one could tell the age of the rocks from examining the fossils found within. This was radical stuff in 1815, and the work that led to this map took Smith some 30 years. Along the way he picked up a wife, who was possibly crazy, and adopted a nephew, who became his assistant, had business and financial troubles, which led to his being held in debtor's prison, and had a long running class-based feud with England's scientific establishment, which led to his works not being properly recognized for many years after their publication. Unfortunately, only the last aspect of Smith's life is covered in any detail because that's all he wrote about in his own journal, or is covered in other source material. About the wife we're told that she was a burden to him, often sick, probably crazy, and possibly even a nymphomaniac. We're told all that, but we're never given examples, or are told how Smith felt about her. Did he love her anyway? Did they ever try to have children of their own? Did she embarrass him publicly? We don't know. About the nephew we're told that Smith took over his care when his sister and brother-in-law died, and that he became his assistant, but we're told nothing of their personal relationship. Was their's a close, familial relationship, or only one of master or mentor to apprentice? We don't know. And such is the frustration with the book (mine, at least). What's left is endless descriptions of the various layers of the earth's crust, and how Smith could tell if an outcropping belonged to the Jurassic or Cretaceous periods. I picked up this book because I loved Winchester's previous "The Professor and the Madman" so much. That's a book that's rich in personal detail, and is as important and fascinating in the descriptions of the lives of the subjects as it is in the descriptions of their professional works. "The Map that Changed the World" is likely stunning for students of geology, but may bore beyond belief the reader who doesn't care or know about item one of earth science. So - In the end, I suppose a mixed review. If you get this joke (and think it's funny): "Subduction leads to orogeny" - or, if you have a bumper sticker that says "Stop Plate Tectonics" - Then this is a five star book that you will love every page of. If you don't even care to look up any of those words, then this is a three star book you should avoid. Which averages out to four stars: An occasionally fascinating and well-written book that is often dry and disappointing.
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