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116 of 120 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Score one for people who love maps!, November 1, 2007
This review is from: Cartographia: Mapping Civilizations (Hardcover)
Reviewed by Peg Brantley
"X" marks the spot. Do you remember that? You knew you'd found treasure--or at the very least, an amazing secret waiting to be unearthed.
Cartographia is a treasure that is waiting for map and history lovers of all generations to discover. This beautiful work of art will hold your attention for hours as you look at maps drawn on paper, on wood, on stone, on figurines, and in tapestries. World maps, metaphorical maps, a map depicting a square earth and round heaven, maps on warfare, and the Oregon Trail. From ancient maps to one of the human genome, they're all contained within the pages of this book.
The text brings history alive and helps to develop an understanding of the psychology and culture behind the creation of these charted representations.
Vincent Virga, "America's foremost picture editor," is well known in history circles. Collaborating with The Library of Congress (where more than five million maps reside), he has put together an awesome book illuminating the diversity of people who populate our planet. Not only their different geographic landscapes, but also their cultural and social visions of the world and how those ideas have changed over time are represented. From Africa to the Netherlands, China to Ireland, Christianity, Judaism, Islam...you will receive a sense of human attitudes and ideas thoughtfully portrayed in the permanent form of maps.
If you ever get a thrill finding your destination, reading the map key to open the mysteries before you, or locating your house on Google Earth, Cartographia will captivate you.
If you know someone these emotions apply to, don't let them miss this book.
"X" marks the spot. You can find it in Cartographia.
Armchair Interviews says: Map lovers of the world, unite.
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29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Where's the bibliography?, May 15, 2009
This review is from: Cartographia: Mapping Civilizations (Hardcover)
Although this is an attractive coffee table book, the lack of a bibliography is troubling. Vincent Virga does not cite the scholars whose ideas he disseminates. Virga admits in the acknowledgments that he didn't "get" maps or mapmaking when he started the project. Yet, he takes credit for the ideas, as if by hanging out with scholars and librarians at the Library of Congress, he was able to come up with a "new approach" to cartography and to understand the map history of every corner of the globe. This would take a lifetime of study. One of his main sources is the multi-volume encyclopedic History of Cartography published by University of Chicago Press, which introduces and explains many of the same maps. Yet he never cites this important and original work nor refers his readers to it. In fact, he does not cite a single book or article.
More ethical and scrupulous nonfiction authors who write for a popular audience use endnotes and a bibliography or an annotated bibliography to give credit to the scholars and authors whose work they popularize. Virga's "cartobibliography" shows only where he got permission to reprint the images. Without a real bibliography, most readers will never find the scholarly works where Virga got his ideas. It is troubling that the Library of Congress participated in this project on
those terms.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Amazing and Beautiful book about the history of map-making!, March 20, 2008
This review is from: Cartographia: Mapping Civilizations (Hardcover)
"Cartographia," by Vincent Virga and the Library of Congress is an amazing volume that explores in depth the development of the art of cartogtraphy, map-making, from ancient times to the present. This handsome, over-sized, volume with full color photos of beautiful and rare maps throughout the ages, is a must-have for anyone interested in history, geography or maps.
The book is arranged in sections divided by region of the world (i.e. Mediterranean, Europe, the Americas, Asia, etc). The text is extremely informative, well-written and engaging, while also very concise and focused. The map photos are absolutely breath-taking! Apparently the U.S. Library of Congress map collection contains more than 4.8 million original maps, and more than 60,000 atlases from ancient times to the present- which is absolutely incredible in and of itself!
Some of the maps and sections I found most interesting were: the early maps of the "New World," with all their interesting speculations and inaccuracies; the maps of Egypt- both by the ancient Egyptians, as well as maps made by Napoleon's early 19th century expedition and others. This magnficient volume also includes some early road and transit maps made right around the time that the national highway system was beginning to take shape across America in the mid twentieth century.
I highly, highly recommend this excellent volume- not only for the amazing maps and excellent text, but also for a sense of perspective of how maps have been shaped by human cultural perceptions of those in power throughout the ages. It is also a great book for parents with school age children, or to display as a living room, coffee table conversation piece. Pick this one up, and enjoy!
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