The Mapmaker's Wife: A True Tale Of Love, Murder, And Survival In The Amazon

Written by Robert Whitaker

Narrated by Eric Jason Martin

In the early years of the eighteenth century, a band of French scientists set off on a daring, decade-long expedition to South America in a race to measure the precise shape of the earth. Like Lewis and Clark's exploration of the American West, their incredible mission revealed the mysteries of a little-known continent to a world hungry for discovery. Scaling 16,000-foot mountains in the Peruvian Andes, and braving jaguars, pumas, insects, and vampire bats in the jungle, the scientists barely completed their mission. One was murdered, another perished from fever, and a third-Jean Godin-nearly died of heartbreak. At the expedition's end, Jean and his Peruvian wife, Isabel Grameson, became stranded at opposite ends of the Amazon, victims of a tangled web of international politics. Isabel's solo journey to reunite with Jean after their calamitous twenty-year separation was so dramatic that it left all of eighteenth-century Europe spellbound. Her survival-unprecedented in the annals of Amazon exploration-was a testament to human endurance, female resourcefulness, and the power of devotion.

Drawing on the original writings of the French mapmakers, as well as his own experience retracing Isabel's journey, acclaimed writer Robert Whitaker weaves a riveting tale rich in adventure, intrigue, and scientific achievement.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Jul 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781977344021

Reviews for The Mapmaker's Wife

[readermom68 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The writing is well done, but I just couldn't get into the story, which is odd since i usually enjoy this type of book. Oh well. Not going to rate it as that would be unfair to the author.

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is a combination of so many things - the tale of a scientific expedition, an adventure story, a history of colonialism in South America, an unlikely survival tale - that it's hard to classify it or understand how the author fit so much information in so few pages. It also made me think about how much of my education and reading about history is focused on the English-speaking world - reading this book was like exploring a new world of which I only had the barest outlines. Starting with a French scientific expedition in the 1730s to the equator, this book chronicles the scientific debates and findings and then how members of the expedition remained in South America for years and decades afterwards. And among them were a couple who were separated for nearly twenty years until the wife journeyed through hundreds of miles of dangerous rivers and rainforest to reunite. An amazing story that deserves more attention than history has given it thus afar.

[tronella_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interesting, although the title is a little misleading - much more of the book is devoted to the mapmakers and the history of their expedition than to Isabel herself, although I suppose that's largely because of which historical records were available.

[niecierpek · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's a delightful book, even though the title misrepresents what it really is about. The mapmaker's wife, Isabel Godin, occupies less than half of its pages and, even though her story is a very interesting one, it's part of an even more colourful story of the French Academy of Sciences expedition into the Andes to divine the shape and circumference of the Earth.Without giving too much away, let me just say that Isabel Godin wasn't a mapmaker's wife, either. She was the wife of one of the assistants to the expedition, one of the younger ones on staff. He was named a ‘geographer’ and given a pension by the king in the end, though.Those inaccuracies aside, it’s a great book full of interesting historical characters and events, info on the colonial life in South America, science at the age of Enlightenment, and American flora and fauna. Among other things, the book made me ponder the resilience and patience of the people back then. Their life seemed so much more difficult on the plain survival level. Tragedy and hardship were ubiquitous. The pace of the 18th century colonial world seems almost unimaginable to me. Take communication for example. You could have no news from your family for months and sometimes even tens of years if your letters went astray or if the ship they were on fell into pirates’ hands or was lost at sea. The whole expedition took eight years to finish their work… Poor Isabel spent twenty years (19 to be exact) to hear back from her loving husband, who after having traversed the continent was waiting for appropriate papers to take her to France. And then there is her months long harrowing trip down the Andes and down the Amazon, the trip the author of the book duplicated and was amazed at the woman's resilience.

[cat1ballou · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

More than love, murder, or survival put together, this was a book about science and exploration. I mean, ok and all, sure. It was done in the same tradition as Dava Sobel's books, and there were a lot of parallels (no pun intended, ha!) between this book and Longitude. But, seriously, don't tell me it's about love when love takes up about ten pages. Don't tell me it's about murder when it takes about two seconds to describe the murder. It could just have been about survival in the Amazon & I still would have been interested.

[nandadevi_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This has already been fairly well reviewed by others, save two observations. Firstly the science is done very well indeed, but this is no primer in geodesy and astronomy. That's to say if you aren't already at ease with arc seconds you'll likely find yourself a little at sea. Secondly it has to be noted that he story of Isabel Grameson's survival in the Amazon is as well documented here as the source documents allow. Which means that the author spends as many words on it as can be profitably spent, and no more. The bulk of the book is actually devoted to the story of the science and of the history of Latin America.The publisher seems to have chosen to lay emphasis on the romance, murder and miraculous survival in the wilderness aspects of the story. No doubt this is good for sales, but some folk might reasonably feel they were not sufficiently warned that this is a very serious book indeed. But for those who enjoy this sort of thing this book it is a real gem. To my mind this is streets ahead of Dava Sobel's 'Longitude', much more readable than Alder's 'The Measure of All Things' and at least the equal of Winchester's 'The Map That Changed the World'. Highly recommended.

[whitreidtan · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Subtitled A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon, this is not the sensationally lurid read that it might appear. Using the story of Isabel Grameson Godin, the gently reared South American wife of a French geographer who makes a treacherous and seemingly impossible journey through the amazon to re-join her husband on the other side of the continent as a frame, this is actually far more about the political and scientific basis for the expedition for which Jean Godin worked than it is about Isabel's journey.Nowadays, it is hard to imagine a time when highly respected scientists argued over the shape of the earth and how to measure latitude. In the 1720's this very debate was raging though and the most respected scientists of the day chose sides, defending their positions virulently. Did the earth bulge at the poles and cinch in at the equator or did it bulge slightly at the equator and how in the world could either of these theories be tested? Enter the French Academy and the team of geographers they assembled and sent off to what is now Ecuador in an effort to map the region and prove the shape of the Earth decisively.Whitaker details the scientific background and the political climate both in Europe and in South America as backdrop to the story of the La Condamine expedition. This takes up a large chunk of the book, as do the methods and actual events of the expedition. Aside from in the opening chapter, it is only late in the tale that Isabel and her determination to rejoin her beloved husband enter into the recounting.The scientific expedition is quite interesting itself and incredibly impressive given their meticulous and still accurate measurements but I thought I was going to be reading a book with the bulk accounted for by the true tale of a gently bred woman's impossible trek through the dangerous amazon. When Isabel became the focus, late in the book, this is what I found but her story, perhaps from lack of historical textual evidence, only makes up a tiny portion of the narrative. Ironically, having recently read of Teddy Roosevelt's trip down an amazon tributary (see The River of Doubt), the natural history of the area and its flora and fauna struck me as repetitive. This is not a fault of the book itself, but rather of the strange synchronicity of my reading. Unfortunately it did impact my enjoyment. I also found myself having to re-read some of the scientific sections of the story because my head clearly checked out in the midst of them. Perhaps a more scientifically-minded reader would have been riveted but I must admit to a bit of boredom and the desire for a tad bit more summarizing. Well-written and historically accurate though it was, I had hoped for a more engrossing narrative of a different sort.

[majorbabs · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not for everyone, but the harrowing story of a wealthy, leisured woman who eventually must cross the Amazon alone to find her husband.

[skf_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Although the title is about Isabel Gramesón de Godín and her daring attempt to be the first woman to go through the unexplored Amazon basin to reach her husband whom she hadn't seen nor heard from in 20 years, there is much more to this book. Robert Whitaker explains the purpose of the 18th century French scientific expedition, (of which the "mapmaker" was a member) to discover the shape of the earth, follows the fascinating stories of each of the members of that group, describes the topography, flora and fauna in the Vice Royalty of Peru (modern Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia) and Brazil's Amazon basin, and gives insight into the politics and history of the Spanish colonies of that day. I recommend this book to anyone interested in these countries and wants a unbelieveable, yet true, story.

[bcquinnsmom · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Mapmaker's Wife is a history of scientific exploration, as well as a story of one woman's survival through the Amazon rainforest; the best parts of this book were the descriptions of Isabel Grameson-Godin's journey alone through the Amazon. I was really drawn to this section of the book; sadly it just didn't last long enough!The book begins in 1769, with Isabel (nee Grameson) Godin deciding that it was time she make the journey down the Amazon to meet her husband. Jean Godin was a part of a group of scientists from France who had come to the equatorial region of Peru to make studies of the shape of the earth (which was still unknown at the time). By measuring a degree of longitude, they would be able to determine whether or not the earth bulged at the equator; simultaneously, another expedition had gone up north to Lapland to see they could prove that the earth flattens toward the poles. Politics between Spain and France, Spain and Portugal, and France and Portugal changed and changed again within the scope of the 20+ years this book covers, and this had a definite impact on the story of the explorations as well as on Isabella's journey.The first part of the book discusses what was known about the physical geography of the world up until the 1700s; it also discusses the Enlightenment movement and politics in Europe. The author has done a huge amount of research. Then the book focuses on the expedition itself and the various trials and tribulations of the French party as they tried to keep their research going. When Isabella is only 13 she marries Jean Godin; she has dreams of going to France. He would like to take her there, but he has never been paid for his work and was stranded in South America. Godin decides to go to the other side of the continent and work to raise money; he then thought he would go back to Peru and take Isabella and his daughter with him back down the Amazon and on to France. But as things usually go, his plans fell through, and ultimately the couple were separated for 20 years. Isabella decides that she must find her husband and go on to France, and she and a small retinue set out to go down the Amazon to the Atlantic Ocean. Her journey through the Amazon, as I noted, is the best part of this story and I was amazed by what this woman was able to endure.The positives about this book: the author definitely did his homework and a LOT of meticulous research. You really get a feel for politics, science & the mistreatment of the natives at the hands of the Europeans.The negatives: maybe a little too much science history at the beginning; I really like history & I enjoy reading it, but I felt like I was overwhelmed with fact fact fact here. Getting into the story, I felt like the title was a little misleading. The voyages down the Amazon and through the rainforest were fascinating to read but the "murder" part of the story was way underdone so if you were expecting something lurid, forget it.All in all, it was an okay book, and if you're interested in mapmaking, European politics, science during the Enlightenment period and the history of the Amazon region in general, you'll like it.