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Book Review of The Mapmaker's Wife : A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon

The Mapmaker's Wife : A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon
reviewed on + 171 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5


This was a fascinating book with a misleading title. The book revolves around a French expedition in the 1770's to accurately measure longitude at the equator. It is amazing what difficulties scientists faced and overcame to arrive at conclusions which we take for granted today. The tale of Isabel Godin only comes into play at the end of the book, and, at no time is her husband, Jean Godin, a mapmaker. He was the signal carrier for the expedition and he constructed a grammar of the language of the native Americans, but he was not a mapmaker. Nevertheless, this was a well-researched and well-told story.