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Mapping the World: Stories of Geography
An illustrated history of explorers' maps and the questions they answer.
More than the detailed representation of the geographical areas that their makers explored, maps reveal their makers' worldview as well as the myths, beliefs and legends of their times. By patiently creating maps, globes, charts and atlases, humans have sought to understand the universe and our place in it.
"Mapping the World" explores many rare and fascinating mapping artifacts, beginning with the first crude drawings and progressing to the stunning satellite views of today. Many of these examples will be unfamiliar even to serious cartographers and collectors. Thirty essays answer the questions map-makers have asked and reveal the roles their maps played in finding those answers.
Color reproductions of beautiful maps and charts include:
A Chinese map dated to 1229 that shows the city's bridges, pagodas and gardens A French 15th-century interpretation of the four corners of the Earth A painted silk map of the universe dating from the 1830s A modern "inverse" world map from Australia's perspective The cosmos as imagined in 1750.
With 87 maps in all, "Mapping the World" will fascinate general readers, map collectors, geographers, cartographers and historians.
More than the detailed representation of the geographical areas that their makers explored, maps reveal their makers' worldview as well as the myths, beliefs and legends of their times. By patiently creating maps, globes, charts and atlases, humans have sought to understand the universe and our place in it.
"Mapping the World" explores many rare and fascinating mapping artifacts, beginning with the first crude drawings and progressing to the stunning satellite views of today. Many of these examples will be unfamiliar even to serious cartographers and collectors. Thirty essays answer the questions map-makers have asked and reveal the roles their maps played in finding those answers.
Color reproductions of beautiful maps and charts include:
A Chinese map dated to 1229 that shows the city's bridges, pagodas and gardens A French 15th-century interpretation of the four corners of the Earth A painted silk map of the universe dating from the 1830s A modern "inverse" world map from Australia's perspective The cosmos as imagined in 1750.
With 87 maps in all, "Mapping the World" will fascinate general readers, map collectors, geographers, cartographers and historians.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published September 10, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 12, 2024
Text is difficult to read, and sometimes makes no sense at all or pulls heavily on philosophical strings. Annoyingly, the text also often makes references to certain maps, yet the images next to it are of a completely different map, leaving you confused and yearning to be able to see what the text was actually about.
Otherwise the images are indeed beautiful, although often incomplete/ cropped out portions of maps.
Otherwise the images are indeed beautiful, although often incomplete/ cropped out portions of maps.
April 30, 2022
Although beautiful, and containing lots of truly stunning colour plates of gorgeous, fascinating maps, the text was almost unreadable. I suspect it's much better in the original French, but it reads as if it was dumped into Google Translate, and then published with no editorial oversight at all. It also has a very philosophical, abstruse style.
May 13, 2010
With a name like "Mapping the World; Stories of Geography," this well-made coffee table book sounds like it should be a real slam dunk for a mappy gentleman like myself. And indeed, it fulfills the basic mission of the coffee table book, offering up many pages of pretty pictures. In this case, the pictures are details from mostly premodern maps.
The book has a different look from most other collections of its type. One reason for this is that it shows not entire maps but picturesque details from maps. This is fine, I suppose, but to me the images seem a bit lackluster thus out of context. The enjoyment of exploring, of finding the quirky details in the context of the map, has already been taken care of for you. These are historic maps, pre-digested.
The image quality is great -- suspiciously great. The images are sharper, less yellowed, less cracked and stained, than documents of their image ought to be. One suspects photoshopping. Too -- although it seems uncivil to remark on the text or the intellectual underpinnings of a coffee table book -- both are awfully weak in this instance. I mean, this is a book that starts "Without a doubt, we need poetry to create spaces according to the size of our imagination and to describe the surface of the earth." Oh please.
But, the maps are still pretty if you can put up with the haphazard cropping.
The book has a different look from most other collections of its type. One reason for this is that it shows not entire maps but picturesque details from maps. This is fine, I suppose, but to me the images seem a bit lackluster thus out of context. The enjoyment of exploring, of finding the quirky details in the context of the map, has already been taken care of for you. These are historic maps, pre-digested.
The image quality is great -- suspiciously great. The images are sharper, less yellowed, less cracked and stained, than documents of their image ought to be. One suspects photoshopping. Too -- although it seems uncivil to remark on the text or the intellectual underpinnings of a coffee table book -- both are awfully weak in this instance. I mean, this is a book that starts "Without a doubt, we need poetry to create spaces according to the size of our imagination and to describe the surface of the earth." Oh please.
But, the maps are still pretty if you can put up with the haphazard cropping.
January 5, 2016
A truly amazing book! This book gave me a glimpse into maps as expression not just of geography but of cosmology as well. Thus, maps of local regions helped early man to understand the cosmos and his place in it. The book also shows how imperialism and warfare shaped the history of mapmaking. It is no accident that Europe is most often seen in the centre of most historical maps; Australia has a map where it is in the centre and top of the world. The book traverses history from the earliest days to our present impulse to map the heavens and the stars and planets in it. There is a page with accompanying map for each topic, presenting a smorgasbord of ideas that have me wanting to look up more about maps.
April 17, 2011
This has some gorgeous maps in it, which is the only reason I got it. I can't tell you anything about the prose within - I got this off the bargain rack simply for the purpose of cutting it up collages. The colors and renderings are great.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews