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Jump down to see edition details for: Paperback
Bibliographic Detail
Publisher
Reaktion Books
Publication date
March 1, 2005
Pages
271
Binding
Paperback
Book category
Adult Non-Fiction
ISBN-13
9781861892300
ISBN-10
1861892306
Dimensions
0.75 by 6 by 9 in.
Published in
Great Britain
Original list price
$34.00
Other format details
university press
Amazon.com says people who bought this book also bought:
Grand Hotel Abyss | The Ice Museum | Mountains of the Mind | The Wild Places | The Last of the Light | Distance and Memory | The Living Mountain | Arctic Dreams | You Must Change Your Life
Grand Hotel Abyss | The Ice Museum | Mountains of the Mind | The Wild Places | The Last of the Light | Distance and Memory | The Living Mountain | Arctic Dreams | You Must Change Your Life
Summaries and Reviews
Amazon.com description: Product Description:
North is the point we look for on a map to orient ourselves. It is also the direction taken throughout history by the adventurous, the curious, the solitary, and the foolhardy. Based in the North himself, Peter Davidson, in The Idea of North, explores the very concept of "north" through its many manifestations in painting, legend, and literature.
Tracing a northbound route from rural Englandâwhose mild climate keeps it from being truly northernâto the wind-shorn highlands of Scotland, then through Scandinavia and into the desolate, icebound Arctic Circle, Davidson takes the reader on a journey from the heart of society to its most far-flung outposts. But we never fully leave civilization behind; rather, it is our companion on his alluring ramble through the north in art and story. Davidson presents a north that is haunted by Moomintrolls and the ghosts of long-lost Arctic explorers but at the same time, somehow, home to the fragile beauty of a Baltic midsummer evening. He sets the Icelandic Sagas, Nabokov's snowy fictional kingdom of Zembla, and Hans Christian Andersen's cryptic, forbidding Snow Queen alongside the works of such artists as Eric Ravilious, Ian Hamilton Finlay, and Andy Goldsworthy, demonstrating how each illuminates a different facet of humanity's relationship to the earth's most dangerous and austere terrain.
Through the lens of Davidson's easy erudition and astonishing range of reference, we come to see that the north is more a goal than a place, receding always before us, just over the horizon, past the last town, off the edge of the map. True north may be unreachable, but The Idea of North brings intrepid readers closer than ever before.
Tracing a northbound route from rural Englandâwhose mild climate keeps it from being truly northernâto the wind-shorn highlands of Scotland, then through Scandinavia and into the desolate, icebound Arctic Circle, Davidson takes the reader on a journey from the heart of society to its most far-flung outposts. But we never fully leave civilization behind; rather, it is our companion on his alluring ramble through the north in art and story. Davidson presents a north that is haunted by Moomintrolls and the ghosts of long-lost Arctic explorers but at the same time, somehow, home to the fragile beauty of a Baltic midsummer evening. He sets the Icelandic Sagas, Nabokov's snowy fictional kingdom of Zembla, and Hans Christian Andersen's cryptic, forbidding Snow Queen alongside the works of such artists as Eric Ravilious, Ian Hamilton Finlay, and Andy Goldsworthy, demonstrating how each illuminates a different facet of humanity's relationship to the earth's most dangerous and austere terrain.
Through the lens of Davidson's easy erudition and astonishing range of reference, we come to see that the north is more a goal than a place, receding always before us, just over the horizon, past the last town, off the edge of the map. True north may be unreachable, but The Idea of North brings intrepid readers closer than ever before.
Editions
Paperback
from Reaktion Books (May 15, 2016)
9781780235981 | details & prices | 299 pages | 5.25 × 7.75 × 1.00 in. | 0.65 lbs | List price $19.95
About: While a compass might tell us which direction we are going, there is really only one direction to which it ever points: north.
About: While a compass might tell us which direction we are going, there is really only one direction to which it ever points: north.
The price comparison is for this edition
from Reaktion Books (March 1, 2005)
9781861892300 | details & prices | 271 pages | 6.00 × 9.00 × 0.75 in. | 0.95 lbs | List price $34.00
About: North is the point we look for on a map to orient ourselves.
About: North is the point we look for on a map to orient ourselves.
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