Maps of Paradise - Tapa dura

"A sumptuously illustrated volume."--Toby Lester "Boston Globe "

"Maps of Paradise is a highly readable yet deeply learned journey into how 'humankind has yearned for a timeless elsewhere', searching for 'perfect bliss, remote either in time or in space.'"--Jerry Brotton, Queen Mary University of London "History Today "

"Enough verve for a wider audience yet enough scholarship for students and academ-ics. . . . The result is a visually impressive and thought-provoking study showing how people perceived, situated, and mapped Eden over time. . . . Because the notion of paradise is so long lived in Western thought, Scafi is able to write both an intellectual history and a history of cartography following one idea through time. Maps of Paradise serves as a wonderful and colorful adjunct to those who already have his similar 2006 work Mapping Paradise; it is a great introduction for those who are unfamiliar with Scafi's earlier work."--Gene Rhea Tucker, Temple College "Historical Geography "

"Numerous beautiful color illustrations make this book a visual treat, and each chapter contains a 'Visual Interlude, ' which gives a close analysis of a particular cartographic image. [It] will be very welcome to students and to learned amateurs who would like to explore this fascinating topic."--Journal of Historical Geography

"The topic of Alessandro Scafi's mesmerizing Maps of Paradise is the cartographic representation of the Garden of Eden from the first millennium to the present day. It is the culmination of years spent immersed in the subject and while it is certainly more condensed than his Mapping Paradise... it lacks none of its authority."

"Because of the nature of the subject, which encompasses art, science and theology among other fields, it will appeal to both scholarly and amateur readers with a variety of interests."

"[The images and text] make the erudite journey of discovery that Scafi's book offers readers tremendously enjoyable."--Dominic Bate "Print Quarterly "

Where is paradise? It always seems to be elsewhere, inaccessible, outside of time. Either it existed yesterday or it will return tomorrow; it may be just around the corner, on a remote island, beyond the sea. Across a wide range of cultures, paradise is located in the distant past, in a longed-for future, in remote places or within each of us. In particular, people everywhere in the world share some kind of nostalgia for an innocence experienced at the beginning of history. For two millennia, learned Christians have wondered where on earth the primal paradise could have been located. Where was the idyllic Garden of Eden that is described in the Bible? In the Far East? In equatorial Africa? In Mesopotamia? Under the sea? Where were Adam and Eve created in their unspoiled perfection?
           
Maps of Paradise charts the diverse ways in which scholars and mapmakers from the eighth to the twenty-first century rose to the challenge of identifying the location of paradise on a map, despite the certain knowledge that it was beyond human reach. Over one hundred illustrations celebrate this history of a paradox: the mapping of the unmappable. It is also a mirror to the universal dream of perfection and happiness, and the yearning to discover heaven on earth.