America: Being the Latest, and Most Accurate Description of the Nevv VVorld

Ogilby, John, 1600-1676Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.1

Word count: 2.5M words
Chapters: 251

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.America: Being the Latest, and Most Accurate Description of the Nevv VVorldAuthor: Ogilby, John, 1600-1676,Language: English, Class: E011: History: America: America, Release Date: Jun 13, 2019

Editor's review

This book is John Ogilby's seventeenth-century account of the Americas, whose title advertises itself as "the latest and most accurate description of the new world"; it belongs to the literature of American history. Its core value lies in showing how early modern Europeans organized, narrated, and imagined the Americas: geographical information, products, peoples, and voyage accounts are interwoven, reflecting both the knowledge accumulated at the time and the perspectival limits of that era. For readers studying colonial history, geographical writing, early maps, and travel literature, it is a primary text available for analysis, helping to understand how a Eurocentric perspective constructed the image of the "new world." It should not be read as an accurate geography in the modern sense; rather, attention should go to its narrative structure, sources, and rhetorical strategies. As an English public-domain e-book, it is large in extent and marked by old-style spelling, making it suitable for thematic selective reading alongside relevant historical background materials, and for discussion as a historical source excerpt in classes or research topics.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Researchers of colonial American history and early geographical writing who need primary texts
Readers in the history of science and the history of the book interested in early modern modes of organizing knowledge
Enthusiasts of English public-domain literature who can adapt to old-style spelling and long sentences
University history students using it as source reading and discussion material

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking modern geographical or travel information about the Americas
Beginning readers hoping for light, popular historical narrative
Readers impatient with seventeenth-century English spelling and lengthy narration

Reading tips

First browse the overall structure, then read in blocks by thematic chapters such as geographical description, products, or accounts of peoples.
While reading, compare with modern maps and historical background materials to distinguish information from imagination in the text.
Note the author's sources and narrative tone to facilitate analysis of early European views of the Americas.
There is no need to read every page; search by keywords according to your research question, then read the relevant passages closely.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Are the descriptions of the Americas in this book still accurate today?

They cannot be judged by the standards of modern geography. This is a seventeenth-century European account, mixing voyage information, hearsay, and imagination of the time, and some content differs from today's geographical understanding. Its value lies in reflecting how early modern Europeans understood and wrote about the Americas, not in providing reliable geographical data.

Why does the spelling in the title look so strange?

Spellings such as "Nevv VVorld" in the title reflect early modern English spelling conventions, in which letters such as u and v were written differently from today; they are printing features of the original period. Public-domain e-books usually retain such old-style spelling, which readers need to adapt to, and modern editions or annotated versions can be consulted for comparison.

Is this book suitable for reading cover to cover or selectively?

Selective reading is more suitable. The book is large, and its narrative style differs markedly from modern works; reading page by page easily loses focus. It is advisable first to look at the table of contents and introductory passages, decide on topics of interest such as geography, products, or accounts of peoples, and then read selectively by theme alongside background materials.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Ogilby, John, 1600-1676 Author

John Ogilby (1600-1676) was a seventeenth-century English writer, translator, and publisher known for compiling works on geography, travel, and literature. Details of his life are limited in publicly available sources, but he is known to have been active in the London book trade and to have been involved in producing several large illustrated volumes. The library holds one work by him, America: Being the Latest, and Most Accurate Description of the Nevv VVorld, a geographical and travel account of the New World. Books of this kind typically drew on earlier travel narratives and maps, with a practical descriptive style that served contemporary readers' interest in the wider world and helped spread knowledge of American geography in the English-speaking world.