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 Ordnance Survey is a much beloved British institution, & Map of a Nation is, amazingly, the first popular history to tell the story of the map & the men who dreamt & delivered it. The Ordnance Survey's history is one of political revolutions, rebellions & regional unions that altered the shape & identity of the United Kingdom over the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries. It's 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. About the author Rachel Hewitt completed her doctoral thesis on the subject of the early Ordnance Survey at the University of London in 2007, & is currently a Leverhulme Research Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London. She won the 2008 Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction for this project. She lives in Cambridge.