Sextant: A Voyage Guided by the Stars and the Men Who Mapped the World’s Oceans

In the tradition of Dava Sobel's ‘Longitude’ comes sailing expert David Barrie's compelling and dramatic tale of invention and discovery – an eloquent elegy to one of the most important navigational instruments ever created, and the daring mariners who used it to explore, conquer, and map the world.This book is an eloquent elegy to the sextant – the odd-looking instrument that changed the world. It tells the story of how and why the sextant was invented; how it saved the lives of many navigators in wild and dangerous seas—as well as its vital role in man’s attempts to map the world. Among the protagonists in this story are Captain James Cook, Matthew Flinders – the first …