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Map: Exploring the World
300 stunning maps from all periods and from all around the world, exploring and revealing what maps tell us about history and ourselves.
Map, Exploring the World brings together more than 300 fascinating maps from the birth of cartography to cutting-edge digital maps of the twenty-fist century. The book's unique arrangement, with the maps organized in complimentary or contrasting pairs, reveals how the history of our attempts to make flat representations of the world has been full of beauty, ingenuity and innovation.
Selected by an international panel of curators, academics and collectors, the maps reflect the many reasons people make maps, such as to find their way, to assert ownership, to record human activity, to establish control, to encourage settlement, to plan military campaigns or to show political power. The selection includes the greatest names in cartography, such as James Cook, Gerard Mercator, Matthew Fontaine Maury and Phyllis Pearsall, as well as maps from indigenous cultures around the world, rarely seen maps from lesser known cartographers, and maps of outstanding beauty and surprising individuality from the current generation of map makers.
Map, Exploring the World brings together more than 300 fascinating maps from the birth of cartography to cutting-edge digital maps of the twenty-fist century. The book's unique arrangement, with the maps organized in complimentary or contrasting pairs, reveals how the history of our attempts to make flat representations of the world has been full of beauty, ingenuity and innovation.
Selected by an international panel of curators, academics and collectors, the maps reflect the many reasons people make maps, such as to find their way, to assert ownership, to record human activity, to establish control, to encourage settlement, to plan military campaigns or to show political power. The selection includes the greatest names in cartography, such as James Cook, Gerard Mercator, Matthew Fontaine Maury and Phyllis Pearsall, as well as maps from indigenous cultures around the world, rarely seen maps from lesser known cartographers, and maps of outstanding beauty and surprising individuality from the current generation of map makers.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published September 28, 2015
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408 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
May 24, 2022
There are many different kinds of map. Part science, part artistic design, the map as a concept is complex and ever changing, encompassing a range of different forms of graphic expression and display. — John Hessler
Most of this review will just be a list of my favourite maps or notable inclusions and some interesting quotes. Honestly, this is a hard book to review purely because it is what it says on the tin, a collection of maps. Let's all be very honest here Map is a book for a particular kind of person. There are a number of fields that may find it of interest but for most people, it is just something that would not appeal. Some groups of people I think this might appeal to, the obvious is those with an amateur interest in cartography (ie the intended audience), those with an interest in anthropology, potentially art fans, or those looking to fill a reading prompt. It is an appealing coffee table book though, there are some really nice and unusual pairs of illustrations that you are likely to find anywhere else. Of the categories I listed I'm actually the anthropology (though I am using it for a prompt too).
To give you an idea of the layout of the book. For the most part, the maps are presented in sets of two. Each set is tied by having a similar topic, style or theme, though very few have similar colour themes. In most cases, the maps were created decades or longer apart. Each map is captioned by the title, year of creation and artist/ cartographer on one line. The second line has the materials it's made of and on, its dimensions and where it is currently housed. Under this is an approximately 200-word write-up on the map, its importance and the creator. I was reading this at night and found it to be quite like watching a match of tennis or test cricket (sometimes at least). Just one more game, just one more over or in this case just one more page. I found it to be quite a calming read. That said there are quite a lot of random facts I didn't know. Like where Brazil got its name from, a tree.
From here the review just devolves into a list of maps and quotes.
• Olafur Eliasson's real-time neon light Daylight Map is the first one that made me this I have to mention this
• City of Anarchy by Adolfo Arranz is a brilliant cutaway of Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong
1247s A Map of the Stars by Wang Zhiyuan is stunning
• Survival Map 1992-1996 (The Siege of Sarajevo) is such a dichotomy. It is a brightly coloured beautiful thing for a very dark time in human history.
• Willamette River, Oregon by Daniel Coe is a gorgeous map and the colouring is fantastic.
• Map of Days is a wonderful idea for a self-portrait by Grayson Perry.
• Mapping the Brain by the Human Genome Project is a whole other way to present the human brain and I want it on my wall
• The embossed Map of Maine is gorgeous and I want to such it.
• The interactive Iceland Illustrated is a fantastic
• In 1989 the-then American Cartographic Association recommended that rectangular projections should not be used at all for general-purpose world maps, but Peters' contention that we should scrutinize the way we predict the world remains valid. (p.156)
• I have never seen the Upside Down World Map and I live in Australia.
• I really like A Map of Vesuvius. It is a good way to show the impact of a lava flow.
• "Few rulers have had as much reason to fear their enemies as King Henry VIII" — (p.176) Truer words have never been spoken.
• Carta Marina is so stunningly detailed. I wish I could see it in all its in-person glory
• Chicago, USA is just a smart piece of design work
• "Any given place holds an infinite number of things that can be mapped. An individual neighbourhood has streets and houses and parks - all of which we might expect to see on a map. But it also has power lines and Christmas lights and sounds and graffiti and people with their own aspirations and all this can be shown cartographically if we simply take the time to collect the information." — (p. 193)
• This isn't the first map I've seen of Mecca but it is probably my favourite, its the colouring
• Serio-Comic War Map for the Year 1877 by Frederick W. Rose is humorous.
• "named Bom Bahia (good bay) by the Portuguese, Bombay was ceded by Portugal to Englan as part of Catherine of Braganza's dowry when she married Charles II of England in 1661" — (p.226) How did I not know this? I mean I'm not surprised it was all to do with marriage and dowries but I didn't know
• Locals and Tourists by Eric Fischer is a wonderful project idea. I'd love to see it done in other cities. Also, I like the colour choices.
• The Earth Seen Through the Sphere of the Stars by Andreas Cellarius is so pretty and so intricate it looks like it belongs on a ceiling somewhere.
• 2MASS Redshift Survey by John Hurchra, Thomas Jarrett and others I also want on my wall. It's mapping light wavelengths look it's pretty ok.
• The Court Game of Geography c. 1840-3 by W. & H. Rock is a fantastic deck of cards and I want it. I would love to see the whole deck, the book only has one suit (hearts, Europe). Honestly, I think we could use this again now.
The most significant thing about Martain Waldseemuller's depiction of the 'New World' - on the left of this map - is not it's elongated shape, but the label he gives it: America. It was the first known use of the name on a map. — Victoria Clarke
Read for QBD Reading Challenge 2022. Filling the prompt: "A Book with a Map in it"
I'm actually cheating with this one probably. This one is all maps. The comparing and contrasting between the maps are the full book.
August 24, 2016
This is a fascinating collection of maps from all centuries and dozens of cultures. There are traditional maps that convey political and geographical/geological information, but also innovative ways to convey how tangible and intangible resources/events/characteristics are distributed across parts of the globe. Imagine a map of scents, or memories. Each map has a concise explanation of what it does and its place in history.
It is an absolutely fascinating book to dip into a few pages at a time. There is so much informatino here that a few pages is about all you can really absorb at once. Many of the maps are much more detailed that can be legible shown even in a large coffee-table book, but you still get the main points and can admire the aesthetics of the mapmaker. Others can be studied closely.
The maps range from Ernest Shepard’s map of the Hundred Acre Wood to Seldon’s map of China. I liked that the authors have credited so many untraditional mapmakers, including women (for example, Marie Tharp who co-mapped the ocean floor with Bruce Heezen, and the artist Agnes Denes for her isometric projection pieces), and indigenous mapmakers (e.g. one anonymous maker of a Marshall Islands stick chart, another Aztec mapmaker from 1540, a Luba mapmaker from Congo, and Estelle Hogan, an Australian aboriginal artist). There are star charts and Jack Kerouac’s sketch of his On the Road route. Some are hand drawn/painted/engraved works of art, while others exploit the possibilities of data mining to map unexpected patterns of behavior. Some are political satires in the form of anthropormorphic maps, while others aim to entice children into learning more about the world. And on and on.
Some that really struck me: a Sea Chart of the Pacific, from 1622, by Hessel Gerritsz, with its beautiful waves and ships decorating the borders and empty spaces of the Pacific; the Plan of Nippur from about 1500 BC, engraved on a clay tablet; and two maps of poverty, one in 1889 London and the other across the globe today. I wish I could figure out how to embed images in my Goodreads reviews to highlight these. There is a copy of the Gerritsz map in his Wikipedia biography (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hessel_...) and the Nippur map is pretty easy to find using Google. Details of the Booth 1889 Poverty map are available at the Museum of London (http://www.museumoflondonprints.com/c... ) but I couldn’t find a good image of the full map. There is a small grid of the map that you can enlarge segmetn by segment at: http://www.umich.edu/~risotto/ . The current world poverty map by the Social and Spatial Inequalities Group at the University of Sheffield can be seen here: http://www.worldmapper.org/posters/wo...
And then in passing I flipped by another one I was very affected by, the Survival Map 1992-1996 (Siege of Sarajevo), http://famacollection.org/eng/fama-co...
There are many nice two page spreads where the same location is mapped in two different times, or by two different cultures, or with two different types of information in mind.
There are also nice resources in the back. A Timeline of Cartography sits on top of a timeline of world history and covers many pages. There are selected biographies of the mapmakers, and a guide to further reading.
It is an absolutely fascinating book to dip into a few pages at a time. There is so much informatino here that a few pages is about all you can really absorb at once. Many of the maps are much more detailed that can be legible shown even in a large coffee-table book, but you still get the main points and can admire the aesthetics of the mapmaker. Others can be studied closely.
The maps range from Ernest Shepard’s map of the Hundred Acre Wood to Seldon’s map of China. I liked that the authors have credited so many untraditional mapmakers, including women (for example, Marie Tharp who co-mapped the ocean floor with Bruce Heezen, and the artist Agnes Denes for her isometric projection pieces), and indigenous mapmakers (e.g. one anonymous maker of a Marshall Islands stick chart, another Aztec mapmaker from 1540, a Luba mapmaker from Congo, and Estelle Hogan, an Australian aboriginal artist). There are star charts and Jack Kerouac’s sketch of his On the Road route. Some are hand drawn/painted/engraved works of art, while others exploit the possibilities of data mining to map unexpected patterns of behavior. Some are political satires in the form of anthropormorphic maps, while others aim to entice children into learning more about the world. And on and on.
Some that really struck me: a Sea Chart of the Pacific, from 1622, by Hessel Gerritsz, with its beautiful waves and ships decorating the borders and empty spaces of the Pacific; the Plan of Nippur from about 1500 BC, engraved on a clay tablet; and two maps of poverty, one in 1889 London and the other across the globe today. I wish I could figure out how to embed images in my Goodreads reviews to highlight these. There is a copy of the Gerritsz map in his Wikipedia biography (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hessel_...) and the Nippur map is pretty easy to find using Google. Details of the Booth 1889 Poverty map are available at the Museum of London (http://www.museumoflondonprints.com/c... ) but I couldn’t find a good image of the full map. There is a small grid of the map that you can enlarge segmetn by segment at: http://www.umich.edu/~risotto/ . The current world poverty map by the Social and Spatial Inequalities Group at the University of Sheffield can be seen here: http://www.worldmapper.org/posters/wo...
And then in passing I flipped by another one I was very affected by, the Survival Map 1992-1996 (Siege of Sarajevo), http://famacollection.org/eng/fama-co...
There are many nice two page spreads where the same location is mapped in two different times, or by two different cultures, or with two different types of information in mind.
There are also nice resources in the back. A Timeline of Cartography sits on top of a timeline of world history and covers many pages. There are selected biographies of the mapmakers, and a guide to further reading.
December 23, 2022
A very beautiful and interesting book of maps that has taken me years to finish. There's one map per page combined with a short explanation of what it represents, its origin, etc. I read pretty much everything and ran out of post-it notes to mark the maps I especially liked. Lovely, enchanting and fascinating, if you like that kind of thing.
April 10, 2022
Okay, so to be precise, I didn’t actually finish this book. I made it through about 200 pages, but it’s more of a coffee table book than something to see the plot of.
Incredible maps! This book feels like walking through a museum with little tidbits of human history and geography along the way. Great selection, editing, and commentary.
Incredible maps! This book feels like walking through a museum with little tidbits of human history and geography along the way. Great selection, editing, and commentary.
December 7, 2015
The title of the book that I have -- with the ISBN that turned up this entry -- is Map: Exploring the World. Daniel Huffman is not listed in the credits. The publisher is Phaidon.
That said, the book I read is a marvel! It is a compilation of more than 300 maps of all types, dating from circa 1500 BCE to the present day. The maps are made of sticks (Pacific Island sea chart), silk (WWII), wood, animal skin, woven as a shawl, etc., etc. They depict real places and imaginary places (Christopher Robin's Hundred-Aker Wood), terrestrial and celestial, and political (the 18 provinces comprising the Low Countries -- later Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg -- shaped like a lion).
Each map is accompanied by text placing it into socio/political context. A must for anyone who likes maps. (And who doesn't?)
That said, the book I read is a marvel! It is a compilation of more than 300 maps of all types, dating from circa 1500 BCE to the present day. The maps are made of sticks (Pacific Island sea chart), silk (WWII), wood, animal skin, woven as a shawl, etc., etc. They depict real places and imaginary places (Christopher Robin's Hundred-Aker Wood), terrestrial and celestial, and political (the 18 provinces comprising the Low Countries -- later Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg -- shaped like a lion).
Each map is accompanied by text placing it into socio/political context. A must for anyone who likes maps. (And who doesn't?)
April 27, 2024
Gorgeous coffee table book, enjoyable to browse a few maps at a time. Beautiful full color reproductions on every page, with lots of narrative about map making and usage through the millennia.
May 19, 2018
This is one of those library books that made me want to run to the bookstore to buy it once I was forced into returning it. Really fascinating maps: a 1960's map of the stars that the astronauts used (three-hole punched) to actually navigate while commanding Apollo 11, and original map of 1958's Disneyland, a map from the year 432 of "the world", maps of early NYC. A very cool way to spend an afternoon.
August 3, 2016
This coffee-table collection of maps from across history blew apart my mental image of what a map is. Each map makes its own assumptions about what information to prioritize and how to to call that information to the attention of the readers. The book excels at putting together two maps with similar subjects but radically different conventions and presentations. It's a real eye-opener, and several of the maps went into my file of "this could become a game" ideas.
February 7, 2018
Other than the gorgeous maps themselves, the greatest strength of this book is its use of juxtaposition. The maps aren't necessarily arranged by date or place of origin, but often across page spreads by theme or process or appearance. The left-hand page will show an example of a certain mapping technique or a map with a particular message and the facing page will show a matching or contrasting example from a completely different context. It makes the book a joy to go through, as each new page is a new opportunity for this kind of discovery, and it also ties the book to its physical form (much as maps were for centuries).
January 15, 2019
Wonderfully compiled, Map is a interesting read for not only those enthused by geography and topography, but history, art, culture and psychology (Map quite unusually touches upon the why's of how people represent such information).
Map also includes glossary, brief summary of selected cartographers and timeline of both cartography and world history to demonstrate the influence of maps upon the world, and via versa, the effect of global activity upon cartography.
Map also includes glossary, brief summary of selected cartographers and timeline of both cartography and world history to demonstrate the influence of maps upon the world, and via versa, the effect of global activity upon cartography.
August 29, 2023
This is a beautiful book to leaf through often - the ideal coffee table book - but it’s a major effort to read from cover to cover, which I have now done. Superbly presented as it is, there is frustration with the book’s relatively small format and the analogue inability to zoom into the highly detailed pictures. This is a work that cries out for the flexibility of multimedia. Nevertheless, I will carry on enjoying this book in little snippets for a very long time. It’s simply gorgeous.
November 14, 2025
Absolutely loved this book, which aimed to show the huge diversity in recording in a format which we might call 'maps' but which covers so much information.
On each double page, there was a picture and an explanation of two 'maps' which showed similar things in a very different way.
This is definitely going on my Christmas list.
On each double page, there was a picture and an explanation of two 'maps' which showed similar things in a very different way.
This is definitely going on my Christmas list.
August 21, 2022
Dymaxion Disneyland. Maps as art, navigation, geopolitics, tourism and religion. I love maps. I wish the pictures were bigger so I could geek out on the detail but the blurbs on each map are informative.
March 13, 2019
Gives a new appreciation for cartographers and their craft. Interesting and informative.
March 31, 2020
Historical. Inventive. A must have coffee table book.
September 19, 2020
SOME VERY COOL MAPS!
December 20, 2020
Real fun read. I was more fan the older maps than the artistic new ones but loved the historical connotations in each map. Overall, enjoyed this book a lot.
March 19, 2021
3.5. Disappointing because of the quality of the images; some of the maps have such fine detail but the images just weren't high enough quality to show them. Also, they probably could have cut a few.
November 5, 2023
Covering a great span of time, various locations, materials, and topics--cities, artistic expression, historical events, airplane flight paths, the brain... An interesting collection.
January 28, 2025
There are a lot of interesting maps. But because there is no attempt at organisation it all seems very random.
February 28, 2017
Una joya. Un libro imprescindible para todos aquellos a los que nos fascinan los mapas y su riqueza en aspectos históricos, culturales, políticos, sociales y artísticos. Una selección de más de 300 mapas que se caracteriza por su extraordinaria variedad y belleza. Un libro al que volver una y otra vez pues su capacidad de fascinación es brutal.
February 14, 2016
I rarely write or share a review but this book is worth taking a look at. It is telling that only 14 people on Goodreads have read this book. It is an oversize book, over 300 pages with 300 maps. Each one is annotated. You have to like maps to read all of the annotations but just looking at the maps is interesting and fascinating. It took a long time to get through but worth it. The art work and craftsmanship are amazing. It isn't only about the historical perspective of cartography, but of printing. I wish there were more maps from Mexico, Central and South Africa and some information about the printing of maps. Even if you don't read the annotations, the maps are worth a look
October 26, 2015
I thoroughly enjoyed leafing through this book with my husband. Every page is a full-color map taking up most of the page, with a paragraph about the map below it. It has traditional maps going back many hundreds of years, modern computer generated maps, humorous maps, maps of specific things like time zones and "tweet pings"- any kind of map you can imagine, from all over the world.
January 1, 2021
I either heard about this book on NPR or came across its title in some article. I am happy to have found a discounted copy online. It's a terrific coffee table book. It has great illustrations and graphics. My preference was for the older historic maps for the information they reveal for their time, but also got a kick from the modern systems maps for their graphic design and typeface quality.
February 22, 2016
This is a mammoth book of maps across place and time. Each map includes a short explanation.
A true coffee table book, one that needs to be explored and digested at a leisurely pace. An amazing spectrum of ways of seeing the world, and ways of making sense of it.
A true coffee table book, one that needs to be explored and digested at a leisurely pace. An amazing spectrum of ways of seeing the world, and ways of making sense of it.
April 14, 2016
It's beautifully arranged. It's a book for artists. It's a book for historians. It's a book for scientists. It's a book for geographers. It's a book that shows our shared history and shared world.
Good read indeed.
Good read indeed.
February 26, 2016
Ten stars! Twenty stars! All the stars! This book has star maps (not my favorites, but so be it)! This is a fantastic museum exhibition in book form.
September 29, 2016
Absolute aanrader voor liefhebbers van cartografie.
Want to read
December 12, 2016JP Morgan Recommendations
December 30, 2015
Beautiful.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews