Author: Mark Monmonier
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226534324
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257
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Book Description
In Rhumb Lines and Map Wars, Mark Monmonier offers an insightful, richly illustrated account of the controversies surrounding Flemish cartographer Gerard Mercator's legacy. He takes us back to 1569, when Mercator announced a clever method of portraying the earth on a flat surface, creating the first projection to take into account the earth's roundness. As Monmonier shows, mariners benefited most from Mercator's projection, which allowed for easy navigation of the high seas with rhumb lines—clear-cut routes with a constant compass bearing—for true direction. But the projection's popularity among nineteenth-century sailors led to its overuse—often in inappropriate, non-navigational ways—for wall maps, world atlases, and geopolitical propaganda. Because it distorts the proportionate size of countries, the Mercator map was criticized for inflating Europe and North America in a promotion of colonialism. In 1974, German historian Arno Peters proffered his own map, on which countries were ostensibly drawn in true proportion to one another. In the ensuing "map wars" of the 1970s and 1980s, these dueling projections vied for public support—with varying degrees of success. Widely acclaimed for his accessible, intelligent books on maps and mapping, Monmonier here examines the uses and limitations of one of cartography's most significant innovations. With informed skepticism, he offers insightful interpretations of why well-intentioned clerics and development advocates rallied around the Peters projection, which flagrantly distorted the shape of Third World nations; why journalists covering the controversy ignored alternative world maps and other key issues; and how a few postmodern writers defended the Peters worldview with a self-serving overstatement of the power of maps. Rhumb Lines and Map Wars is vintage Monmonier: historically rich, beautifully written, and fully engaged with the issues of our time.
Author: Mark Monmonier
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022602900X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 222
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Book Description
Originally published to wide acclaim, this lively, cleverly illustrated essay on the use and abuse of maps teaches us how to evaluate maps critically and promotes a healthy skepticism about these easy-to-manipulate models of reality. Monmonier shows that, despite their immense value, maps lie. In fact, they must. The second edition is updated with the addition of two new chapters, 10 color plates, and a new foreword by renowned geographer H. J. de Blij. One new chapter examines the role of national interest and cultural values in national mapping organizations, including the United States Geological Survey, while the other explores the new breed of multimedia, computer-based maps. To show how maps distort, Monmonier introduces basic principles of mapmaking, gives entertaining examples of the misuse of maps in situations from zoning disputes to census reports, and covers all the typical kinds of distortions from deliberate oversimplifications to the misleading use of color. "Professor Monmonier himself knows how to gain our attention; it is not in fact the lies in maps but their truth, if always approximate and incomplete, that he wants us to admire and use, even to draw for ourselves on the facile screen. His is an artful and funny book, which like any good map, packs plenty in little space."—Scientific American "A useful guide to a subject most people probably take too much for granted. It shows how map makers translate abstract data into eye-catching cartograms, as they are called. It combats cartographic illiteracy. It fights cartophobia. It may even teach you to find your way. For that alone, it seems worthwhile."—Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times ". . . witty examination of how and why maps lie. [The book] conveys an important message about how statistics of any kind can be manipulated. But it also communicates much of the challenge, aesthetic appeal, and sheer fun of maps. Even those who hated geography in grammar school might well find a new enthusiasm for the subject after reading Monmonier's lively and surprising book."—Wilson Library Bulletin "A reading of this book will leave you much better defended against cheap atlases, shoddy journalism, unscrupulous advertisers, predatory special-interest groups, and others who may use or abuse maps at your expense."—John Van Pelt, Christian Science Monitor "Monmonier meets his goal admirably. . . . [His] book should be put on every map user's 'must read' list. It is informative and readable . . . a big step forward in helping us to understand how maps can mislead their readers."—Jeffrey S. Murray, Canadian Geographic
Author: Mark Monmonier
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226534650
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 231
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Book Description
And unlike other books that consider place names, this is the first to reflect on both the real cartographic and political imbroglios they engender."--BOOK JACKET.
Author: Susan Schulten
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226740553
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348
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Book Description
Schulten examines four enduring institutions of learning that produced some of the most influential sources of geographic knowledge in modern history: maps and atlases, the National Geographic Society, the American university, and public schools."--BOOK JACKET.
Author: William Rankin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022633953X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 419
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Book Description
For most of the twentieth century, maps were indispensable. They were how governments understood, managed, and defended their territory, and during the two world wars they were produced by the hundreds of millions. Cartographers and journalists predicted the dawning of a “map-minded age,” where increasingly state-of-the-art maps would become everyday tools. By the century’s end, however, there had been decisive shift in mapping practices, as the dominant methods of land surveying and print publication were increasingly displaced by electronic navigation systems. In After the Map, William Rankin argues that although this shift did not render traditional maps obsolete, it did radically change our experience of geographic knowledge, from the God’s-eye view of the map to the embedded subjectivity of GPS. Likewise, older concerns with geographic truth and objectivity have been upstaged by a new emphasis on simplicity, reliability, and convenience. After the Map shows how this change in geographic perspective is ultimately a transformation of the nature of territory, both social and political.
Author: Nicholas Crane
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0805066241
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 377
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Book Description
Explores the life of Gerhard Mercator, who created the map and solved the dimensional riddle that plagued cosmographers for years, revealing a man who attended one of Europe's top universities but was persecuted by the Inquisition.
Author: Avraham Ariel
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 235
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Book Description
How we came to measure time and distance due to the efforts of intrepid adventurers, scientists, and seafarers who shaped our picture of the world today.
Author: Mark Monmonier
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815610045
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Blending meteorological history with the history of scientific cartography, Monmonier charts the phenomenon of lake-effect snow and explores the societal impacts of extreme weather. Along the way, he introduces readers to natural philosophers who gradually identified this distinctive weather pattern, to tales of communities adapting to notoriously disruptive storms, and to some of the snowiest regions of the country. Characterized by intense snowfalls lasting from a couple of minutes to several days, lake-effect snow is deposited by narrow bands of clouds formed when cold, dry arctic air passes over a large, relatively warm inland lake. With perhaps only half the water content of regular snow, lake snow is typically light, fluffy, and relatively easy to shovel. Intriguing stories of lake effect’s quirky behavior and diverse impacts include widespread ignorance of the phenomenon in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Since then a network of systematic observers have collected several decades of data worth mapping, and reliable shortterm predictions based on satellites, Doppler radar, and computer models are now available. Moving effortlessly from atmospheric science to anecdotes, Monmonier offers a richly detailed account of a type of weather that has long been misunderstood. Residents of lake-effect regions, history buffs, and weather junkies alike will relish this entertaining and informative book.
Author: Jerry Brotton
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143126024
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 547
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Book Description
A New York Times Bestseller “Maps allow the armchair traveler to roam the world, the diplomat to argue his points, the ruler to administer his country, the warrior to plan his campaigns and the propagandist to boost his cause… rich and beautiful.” – Wall Street Journal Throughout history, maps have been fundamental in shaping our view of the world, and our place in it. But far from being purely scientific objects, maps of the world are unavoidably ideological and subjective, intimately bound up with the systems of power and authority of particular times and places. Mapmakers do not simply represent the world, they construct it out of the ideas of their age. In this scintillating book, Jerry Brotton examines the significance of 12 maps - from the almost mystical representations of ancient history to the satellite-derived imagery of today. He vividly recreates the environments and circumstances in which each of the maps was made, showing how each conveys a highly individual view of the world. Brotton shows how each of his maps both influenced and reflected contemporary events and how, by considering it in all its nuances and omissions, we can better understand the world that produced it. Although the way we map our surroundings is more precise than ever before, Brotton argues that maps today are no more definitive or objective than they have ever been. Readers of this beautifully illustrated and masterfully argued book will never look at a map in quite the same way again. “A fascinating and panoramic new history of the cartographer’s art.” – The Guardian “The intellectual background to these images is conveyed with beguiling erudition…. There is nothing more subversive than a map.” – The Spectator “A mesmerizing and beautifully illustrated book.” —The Telegraph
Author: Matthew H. Edney
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022660571X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 324
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Book Description
“In his most ambitious work to date, [Edney] questions the very concept of ‘cartography’ to argue that this flawed ideal has hobbled the study of maps.” —Susan Schulten, author of A History of America in 100 Maps Over the past four decades, the volumes published in the landmark History of Cartography series have both chronicled and encouraged scholarship about maps and mapping practices across time and space. As the current director of the project that has produced these volumes, Matthew H. Edney has a unique vantage point for understanding what “cartography” has come to mean and include. In this book Edney disavows the term cartography, rejecting the notion that maps represent an undifferentiated category of objects for study. Rather than treating maps as a single, unified group, he argues, scholars need to take a processual approach that examines specific types of maps—sea charts versus thematic maps, for example—in the context of the unique circumstances of their production, circulation, and consumption. To illuminate this bold argument, Edney chronicles precisely how the ideal of cartography that has developed in the West since 1800 has gone astray. By exposing the flaws in this ideal, his book challenges everyone who studies maps and mapping practices to reexamine their approach to the topic. The study of cartography will never be the same. “[An] intellectually bracing and marvellously provocative account of how the mythical ideal of cartography developed over time and, in the process, distorted our understanding of maps.” —Times Higher Education “Cartography: The Ideal and Its History offers both a sharp critique of current practice and a call to reorient the field of map studies. A landmark contribution.” —Kären Wigen, coeditor of Time in Maps
