Map of a Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey

Map of a Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey by Hewitt, Rachel. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9781847080981.

"Map of a Nation" tells the story of the creation of the Ordnance Survey map - the first complete, accurate, affordable map of the British Isles. The OS is a much beloved British institution, and "Map of a Nation" is, amazingly, the first popular history to tell the story of the map and the men who dreamt and delivered it from its inception in 1791, right through to the OS MasterMap of the present day: a vast digital database. The Ordnance Surveys history is one of political revolutions, rebellions, and regional unions that altered the shape and identity of the United Kingdom over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Its also a deliciously readable account of one of the great untold British adventure stories, featuring intrepid individuals lugging brass theodolites up mountains to make the country visible to itself for the first time.