Here are 15 books that The History of Cartography fans have personally recommended once you finish the The History of Cartography series.
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I still remember the day I discovered the family atlas (I must have about five; it then lived in my room, and my dad was probably irked, but too kind and encouraging to show it). Since then, I have been mesmerized by maps. How lucky I am to turn an early passion into a focus of research and teaching (I am a Classicist and Historian of Ancient Science). My publications include studies of narrative maps in Greco-Roman literature (they too were mesmerized by maps). You can find maps in the most unexpected places!
In this beautiful book, Maier guides her readers through the parallel development of Rome (imperial city, Holy See, thriving center of art and intellectualism) with the evolution of mapmaking.
I like the clear way that she shows how the changing city helped inform transitions in how and why maps are made. For example, medieval maps of Rome forefront of the city’s five churches, while downplaying other features, and give the cloistered monk (and modern reader) the opportunity to trace an imagined pilgrimage (I spent many childhood hours with the family atlas imagining my own journeys to faraway lands).
Only in the 19th century, when travel for pleasure becomes widespread, do maps of Rome (and elsewhere), advertising their sponsors, become more utilitarian, enabling tourists to find their own ways, and supplying cheap souvenirs.
One of the most visited places in the world, Rome attracts millions of tourists each year to walk its storied streets and see famous sites like the Colosseum, St. Peter's Basilica, and the Trevi Fountain. Yet this ancient city's allure is due as much to its rich, unbroken history as to its extraordinary array of landmarks. Countless incarnations and eras merge in the Roman cityscape. With a history spanning nearly three millennia, no other place can quite match the resilience and reinventions of the aptly nicknamed Eternal City. In this unique and visually engaging book, Jessica Maier considers Rome through…
I have obsessed with maps my whole life, but I guess the main drive for studying them is my enjoyment of outdoor spaces, as a hiker, a mountaineer, and as a sailor: always with a paper map at hand. If you use GPS (a wonderful innovation) you will not only lose some of your precious orientation abilities but above all you will look less at the environment around you. I feel that paper maps do a great favor to my brain and to my enjoyment of places. The books below are a great tribute to maps; they helped me understand them better, and this affected the way I use them.
Maps lie. In the standard visualization you have on Google Maps, for instance, Greenland is shown as bigger than the whole South American continent, while it is, in fact, smaller than Argentina.
Monmonier did an incredible job unpacking the many surprising ways in which maps lie. My favorite case is the sneaky introduction, by publishing houses, of fake towns in US road maps to track plagiarists (as plagiarists just copy, they do not care about checking). There are so many fun examples in this profound book.
An instant classic when first published in 1991, How to Lie with Maps revealed how the choices mapmakers make--consciously or unconsciously--mean that every map inevitably presents only one of many possible stories about the places it depicts. The principles Mark Monmonier outlined back then remain true today, despite significant technological changes in the making and use of maps. The introduction and spread of digital maps and mapping software, however, have added new wrinkles to the ever-evolving landscape of modern mapmaking. Fully updated for the digital age, this new edition of How to Lie with Maps examines the myriad ways that…
I am a historian fascinated with maps and geography, I have produced historical atlases on the world, Britain, war, cities, naval history, fortifications, and World War Two, as well as books on geopolitics and maps. I am an Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Exeter and a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and of Policy Exchange.
Wide-ranging, high-production values, a good balance of maps and text, and excellent value for money. Includes many different types of map not least those of fantasy worlds.
The British Library's map collection is the national cartographic collection of Britain and numbers around four million maps dating from 15 CE to 2017 CE. These include road maps drawn for 13th century pilgrims and sea charts for 17th-century pirates. They include the first printed map to show the Americas and the last to show English-controlled Calais. They include the world's biggest and smallest atlases. They include maps for kings and queens, popes, ministers, schoolchildren, soldiers, tourists. There are maps which changed the world. As well as comprehensively showcasing the varied and surprising treasures of the British Library's "banquet of…
I am a historian fascinated with maps and geography, I have produced historical atlases on the world, Britain, war, cities, naval history, fortifications, and World War Two, as well as books on geopolitics and maps. I am an Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Exeter and a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and of Policy Exchange.
The discovery of hitherto unknown maps is a great treat and this edition uses one to show the development of urban mapping. Well-anchored in the locality, this book is also of much wider value.
This major re-examination of the history of map-making in Exeter, the historic county town of Devon, follows from the recent discovery of a 'new' Georgian town map of the city. That map, by William Birchynshaw (a man not known tohave produced any other), is reproduced in facsimile, along with nearly two dozen other maps from 1587 through to 1949. They are prefaced by an introduction which places the new discovery within the context of four centuries of map-making, demonstrating how Birchynshaw owed a debt both to John Hooker's map of 1587 and to that by Ichabod Fairlove of 1709; and…
I am a historian fascinated with maps and geography, I have produced historical atlases on the world, Britain, war, cities, naval history, fortifications, and World War Two, as well as books on geopolitics and maps. I am an Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Exeter and a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and of Policy Exchange.
An excellent example of the British Library’s History … in 100 Maps series, this book, by an expert, on the American geopolitical imagination, combines a first-rate text with instructive maps. Handsomely produced, it is good value.
Throughout its history, America has been defined through maps. Whether made for military strategy or urban reform, to encourage settlement or to investigate disease, maps invest information with meaning by translating it into visual form. They capture what people knew, what they thought they knew, what they hoped for, and what they feared. As such they offer unrivaled windows onto the past.
In this book Susan Schulten uses maps to explore five centuries of American history, from the voyages of European discovery to the digital age. With stunning visual clarity, A History of America in 100 Maps showcases the power…
I have obsessed with maps my whole life, but I guess the main drive for studying them is my enjoyment of outdoor spaces, as a hiker, a mountaineer, and as a sailor: always with a paper map at hand. If you use GPS (a wonderful innovation) you will not only lose some of your precious orientation abilities but above all you will look less at the environment around you. I feel that paper maps do a great favor to my brain and to my enjoyment of places. The books below are a great tribute to maps; they helped me understand them better, and this affected the way I use them.
This is a very engaging introduction to the history of mapmaking through lively narrated anecdotes, some of which are juicy, such as the persistence of inexistent geographic features (California was mapped as an island for many decades).
I also learned, to my astonishment, that Google has a simple, non-invasive way to know your home address: it is the first address most users look for when they connect to Google Maps!
Maps fascinate us. They chart our understanding of the world and they log our progress, but above all they tell our stories. From the early sketches of philosophers and explorers through to Google Maps and beyond, Simon Garfield examines how maps both relate and realign our history.
With a historical sweep ranging from Ptolemy to Twitter, Garfield explores the legendary, impassable (and non-existent) mountains of Kong, the role of cartography in combatting cholera, the 17th-century Dutch craze for Atlases, the Norse discovery of America, how a Venetian monk mapped the world from his cell and the Muppets' knack of instant…
I have obsessed with maps my whole life, but I guess the main drive for studying them is my enjoyment of outdoor spaces, as a hiker, a mountaineer, and as a sailor: always with a paper map at hand. If you use GPS (a wonderful innovation) you will not only lose some of your precious orientation abilities but above all you will look less at the environment around you. I feel that paper maps do a great favor to my brain and to my enjoyment of places. The books below are a great tribute to maps; they helped me understand them better, and this affected the way I use them.
I guess I'm a bit nerdy about maps and do a lot of mapping myself. (My personal obsession is Venice, a hard-to-map yet hypermapped town.) I would like to see more mapping done by everyone as a practice that connects us with the place we live in or with a place we newly discover.
As a map-maker, I follow many of Tyner's guidelines. They help me focus on what is relevant for an effective registration of features and communication.
This authoritative, reader-friendly text presents core principles of good map design that apply regardless of production methods or technical approach. The book addresses the crucial questions that arise at each step of making a map: Who is the audience? What is the purpose of the map? Where and how will it be used? Students get the knowledge needed to make sound decisions about data, typography, color, projections, scale, symbols, and nontraditional mapping and advanced visualization techniques.
Pedagogical Features: *Over 200 illustrations (also available at the companion website as PowerPoint slides), including 23 color plates *Suggested readings at the end of…
I have obsessed with maps my whole life, but I guess the main drive for studying them is my enjoyment of outdoor spaces, as a hiker, a mountaineer, and as a sailor: always with a paper map at hand. If you use GPS (a wonderful innovation) you will not only lose some of your precious orientation abilities but above all you will look less at the environment around you. I feel that paper maps do a great favor to my brain and to my enjoyment of places. The books below are a great tribute to maps; they helped me understand them better, and this affected the way I use them.
This is a super-authoritative book on the historical evolution of map-making by a renowned scholar of classics. It shows a surprising variety of maps from Antiquity to the present. Yet in this variety, Jacob is able to find important commonalities that help us understand what makes a map a map.
The take-home message for me has been that maps are engines of thought. By making a territory visible, they unleash a trove of otherwise unthinkable thoughts about it.
A novel work in the history of cartography, "The Sovereign Map" argues that maps are as much about thinking as seeing, as much about the art of persuasion as the science of geography. As a classicist, Christian Jacob brings a fresh eye to his subject - which includes maps from Greek Antiquity to the twentieth century - and provides a theoretical approach to investigating the power of maps to inform, persuade, and inspire the imagination. Beginning with a historical overview of maps and their creation - from those traced in the dirt by primitive hands to the monumental Dutch atlases…
I still remember the day I discovered the family atlas (I must have about five; it then lived in my room, and my dad was probably irked, but too kind and encouraging to show it). Since then, I have been mesmerized by maps. How lucky I am to turn an early passion into a focus of research and teaching (I am a Classicist and Historian of Ancient Science). My publications include studies of narrative maps in Greco-Roman literature (they too were mesmerized by maps). You can find maps in the most unexpected places!
Finally, you can’t talk about maps and not talk about sea monsters.
Want to buy a sea monster? Van Duzer tells you how! Given my professional (and personal) interest in cartography, water, sailing, and animals, this book absolutely had to appear on my “Best Books” list. It is very richly illustrated (115 color images), but is not simply a picture book.
Van Duzer’s narrative is engaging and informative. He explores terrifying and whimsical marine creatures that peopled Medieval and Renaissance waters (many are imaginary; some are more or less based on actual sea animals). And he situates them within the broader context of the individual maps, their impact, and marine biology.
Van Duzer thus helps his audience read European Medieval and Renaissance Maps more fully and richly.
The sea monsters on medieval and Renaissance maps, whether swimming vigorously, gambolling amid the waves, attacking ships, or simply displaying themselves for our appreciation, are one of the most visually engaging elements on these maps, and yet they have never been carefully studied. The subject is important not only in the history of cartography, art, and zoological illustration, but also in the history of the geography of the 'marvellous' and of western conceptions of the ocean. Moreover, the sea monsters depicted on maps can supply important insights into the sources, influences, and methods of the cartographers who drew or painted…
I still remember the day I discovered the family atlas (I must have about five; it then lived in my room, and my dad was probably irked, but too kind and encouraging to show it). Since then, I have been mesmerized by maps. How lucky I am to turn an early passion into a focus of research and teaching (I am a Classicist and Historian of Ancient Science). My publications include studies of narrative maps in Greco-Roman literature (they too were mesmerized by maps). You can find maps in the most unexpected places!
To my mind, the British Ordnance Survey Maps are the gold standard: these super-detailed maps are my most highly treasured souvenirs of a research trip in my graduate school days.
From the map I recognized every hillock and bend in the road I passed on my Hadrian’s Wall hike. With an Ordnance Survey Map, you know exactly where you are in the UK. Hewitt nimbly relates that story, weaving together history and science, nationalism, and cartography.
Besides this being an important and underappreciated slice of cartographic history, the book is simply a joy to read. When I look at my Ordnance Survey Maps now, I don’t just see marks on a two-dimensional surface, I see the faces of those creative and visionary men and recognize their Herculean efforts.
'A gripping story about the personalities who initiated the mapping of Britain and their extraordinary skill and endurance' Max Hastings, Sunday Times
The Ordnance Survey is a much beloved British institution, but in our modern map-obsessed world how much do we know about its curious origins and extraordinary challenges? Here at last is the remarkable story of the creation of the first complete, accurate, affordable map of the British Isles. What it reveals is a colourful and engrossing secret history of the Ordnance Survey and the obsessive and ambitious men who dreamt and delivered it.
