The Map that Changed the World

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The Map that Changed the World is a 2001 book by Simon Winchester about English geologist William Smith and his great achievement, the first geological map of England, Wales and southern Scotland.

Smith's was the first national-scale geological map, and by far the most accurate of its time. His pivotal insights were that each local sequence of rock strata was a subsequence of a single universal sequence of strata and that these rock strata could be distinguished and traced for great distances by means of embedded fossilized organisms.

Winchester's book narrates the intellectual context of the time, the development of Smith's ideas and how they contributed to the theory of evolution and more generally to a dawning realisation of the true age of the Earth. The book describes the social, economic or industrial context for Smith's insights and work, such as the importance of coal mining and the transport of coal by means of canals, both of which were a stimulus to the study of geology and the means whereby Smith supported his research. Landowners wished to know if coal might be found on their holdings. Canal planning and construction depended on understanding the rock and soil along its route.

Related topics, such as the founding of the Geological Society of London, are included. Smith's map was published by John Cary, a leading map publisher. Winchester describes the practice of publishing at the time as well as the system of debtor's prisons through his account of the sojourn of Smith in the King's Bench Prison.