Simon Winchester is the acclaimed author of numerous New York Times best-selling books, including The Professor and the Madman, The Perfectionists, The Men Who United the States, Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World, and The Map that Changed the World. His most recent book is Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic. In a career spanning five decades, Simon has been a geologist, a journalist, and a correspondent based in Northern Ireland, the United States, India, Hong Kong, and New York. He was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to journalism and literature. He lives in Massachusetts and New York City.