MY ONLY GRUMBLE about Over the Edge of the World is the title, with its superior, twenty-first-century nod towards the image of a boatload of wide-eyed innocents sailing terror-stricken towards expected destruction as they tumble off the flat world and into the void. That is a modern myth: it had been well known since at least the time of Pythagoras of Samos in the sixth century BC that the earth was a globe.

Subscribe or Sign In to read the full article