John W. Hessler

John W. Hessler is senior cartographic reference specialist in the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress. A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, he has written extensively on the history of science and cartography, and has published articles in many scholarly and popular journals. He is also the author of "The Naming of America" (2008), a commentary and new translation of Martin Waldseemüller’s seminal text the "Cosmographiae introductio," "Thoreau on Cape Cod: His Journeys and His Lost Maps" (2011), and "Seeing the World Anew: The 1507 and 1516 World Maps of Martin Waldseemüller" (2012). Hessler has been awarded many grants and fellowships including a John S. Best Research Fellowship from the American Geographical Society, and a Kluge Fellowship by the Library of Congress in 2011. He is currently working on the forthcoming book, "Cartography in the Age of Computer Simulation: Lectures on the Mathematical and Topological Foundations of GIS."

Previous National Book Festival Appearances

• 2012