Some Truth With Maps: A Primer on Symbolization and Design

by Alan M. MacEachren

129 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Alan M. MacEachren is Professor Emeritus of Geography at Penn State. His career has focused on cartography, data visualization, visual analytics, spatial cognition, and geographic information retrieval, with applications in public health, crisis management, and environmental science. During 42 years in academia, he authored two books (How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design and some Truth with Maps: A Primer on Symbolization and Design), co-edited many scientific publications, and authored or co-authored well over 200 research papers. Recent awards include: The International Cartographic Association’s Carl Mannerfelt Gold Medal (2021), the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science Research Award (2022), and the Cartography and Geographic Information Society Distinguished Career Award (2022). MacEachren’s long career included travel to many parts of the world, offering chances to pursue a non-academic avocation – birding. Starting in 1991, his “life list” is 1,519 bird species. He has posted over 7000 eBird reports (from 22 countries), including 1629 eBird reports from sites in Pennsylvania in 2021.

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is both excellent and an unprepossessing small grey object full of small grey illustrations (… books, covers, etc). Very readable and accessible, copious illustrations accompany the discussion and are developed to exemplify the points in the main text. Good balance between cartography and graphic communication, this book is suitable for design and data-viz as well as cartographers and environmental scientists.