- Published: 3 December 2024
- ISBN: 9780241556870
- Imprint: Allen Lane
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 208
- RRP: $50.00
Four Points of the Compass
The Unexpected History of Direction











- Published: 3 December 2024
- ISBN: 9780241556870
- Imprint: Allen Lane
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 208
- RRP: $50.00
Surprising, entertaining and original
Sathnam Sanghera, author of EMPIRELAND and EMPIREWORLD
A unique and observant history ... well written, measured and precise ... points lucidly at where we have come from.
Chris Allnutt, Financial Times
Four Points of the Compass is breathless as well as breathtaking ... Brotton offers what might be framed as a history of the cultural politics of the cardinal directions [and] makes pertinent interventions in those politics ... fascinating titbits, provocations to thought and further inquiries abound ...
Robert Mayhew, Times Literary Supplement
A brilliant writer and historian
William Dalrymple
Mr. Brotton’s evocative book investigates those shifting meanings, drawing from religion, history, literature and geopolitics to argue that north, south, east, and west now function more as loaded ideological terms than as navigational aids . . . He establishes that they remain potent in fascinating and surprising ways
Barbara Spindel, Wall Street Journal