For thousands of years, human beings ignored much of the planet's territories, landscapes, and inhabitants, and on maps, unknown regions were called Terra incognita. As late as 1840, the seafloor was a complete mystery; thirty years later, scientists were still arguing that the sea covered the poles, and by 1900, no one had yet reached the stratosphere. And yet, all these gaps became the stimulus our ancestors needed to unravel the secrets of the Earth that amazed and terrified them in equal measure. In their pursuit of knowledge, they made countless mistakes, sometimes brilliant, often bizarre, but always fascinating. In this magnificent essay, Alan Corbin offers us a revealing history of ignorance as a driving force of human curiosity that awakens our thirst for knowledge and transforms our view of the world.