Joseph Kerski
speaker
638 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 1 Aug
Joseph Kerski’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
However, three quarters of the topics are germane to geography.
Pliny did such a good job of organizing his topics that Naturalis Historia became a model for later encyclopedias, right down to the detailed referencing of individual and original authors, its indexing techniques, and its table of contents.
Pliny wasn't the first geographer to die as a result of being curious about the Earth, and he wouldn't be the last.
He also wasn't the first geographer to want to do all he could to rescue someone in need.
Indeed, geographers have big hearts.
But few deaths can match the spectacular circumstances surrounding Pliny's last days.
The Emperor Vespas Vespasion
and appointed Pliny the position of fleet commander of the Roman Navy.
On twenty fourth August in C E seventy nine.
While Mount Vesuvius was erupting, Pliny was preparing to cross the Bay of Naples when he received a plea from his friend Rectina to rescue her and her companion.
He landed at Herculaneum, found the companion, but not Rectina.
Continued on to Stabier, just north of Pompeii, from which all the occupants were fleeing, but instead of fleeing himself, ever the geographer, he continued continued to describe each new phase of the eruption.
As the earthquakes and fire grew more intense, Pliny was unable to escape.
Finally succumbing from falling pumice, heat, and poisonous volcanic gases.
His body was discovered two days later on the beach at Stabier.
If you're interested, listen to my podcast about this very subject in my December 2025 episode of the Thinking Spatially Podcast series, this very same podcast series that you're listening to right now.
So that's our
Thought leader Pliny the Elder Pliny the Elder.
Our tool this episode is a set of tools really, they're all related though, cross staffs, astrolabes, LABES, and other devices, determining positions on the planet.
Accurately determining the psi the position and location of things and phenomena as well as one's own position on the planet is fundamental to geography.
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