Customer Reviews

How to Lie with Maps (2nd Edition)

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Although this book teaches how to manipulate maps in order to mislead an audience, it is more valuable as a reference to avoid having others do the same to you. Also of interest is the fact that mistakes are often responsible for the lie. This is a good buy for those who are involved with the creation of GIS maps (and those who view them!).

Any book that calls itself, "How to Lie with..." is simply begging for a reviewer to compare it to, "How to Lie with Statistics." The latter is a classic that is fun and educational. Unfortunately, this book falls short of deserving the title but it is still an interesting read. One of the main problems is that rather than being a guide to help avoid being fooled by maps, the author uses the book as an introduction to the science of cartography. It seems that a large portion of the book is aimed towards the prospective mapmaker. I found these parts to be a bit difficult to get through. Also, there are very few real life examples in the book. I would have liked to see more examples from newspapers or magazines in place of the samples the author provides. Some of the few real life examples are from Nazi Germany and the USSR and seem very dated.

That was the bad side but there are many good points to the book. The chapter on development maps was very interesting (although the attempts at humor are wasted) and should be required reading for anyone who is serving on a zoning board. Also, the discussion of choropleth maps is excellent and the reader will come away with a clear understanding of how these maps can be abused either deliberately or accidentally by the cartographer. The author shows examples of very different choropleth maps using the same data that will make you skeptical of anyone who uses choropleth maps to prove a point.

Although parts of the book drag, the book is short at 150 pages so it is a relatively quick read. I wouldn't say that it is required reading, but it will help you maintain a healthy skepticism about maps that you might encounter.

Maps are one of hte commonest kind of information graphic. They occur in many forms, in many contexts, and commonly carry more data per square inch than just about any other kind of diagram. Also, a map carries some sense of authority and may even inspire a kind of loyalty - surely you know at least one map fanatic? That carrying capacity and authority can be used badly as easily as used well: incompetently, to make some point at the expense of others, or intentionally to misdirect.

The book's first section reminds us that every map contains mis- or missing information - if only because the world is round and the map is flat. Later, Mommonier gives examples of incompetence showing how information, especially in color, can be illegible.

He also shows how maps can affect political decisions as close as your own back yard, the maps used to make land planning and zoning decisions. He works up from town hall politics to the international scale, including some remarkable Cold War artifacts. He mentions esthetics only briefly, mostly to point out how the decision to make a map look nice can corrupt its data content. This is a loss since esthetics don't inherently conflict with the message, but good illustrators already know how to create visual appeal and bad ones should not be encouraged.

This is a useful addition for anyone who creates or uses information in picture form. It's not as broad as other books, but adds depth to discussions about one particular kind of information graphic. The wide ranging and well categorized bibliography is just an extra.

//wiredweird

I am not a professional cartographer by any means. I'm a designer/illustrator. Recently, I've received several assignments working on way finding maps for city tourism departments, university campuses, and zoos. Those sorts of maps are more about helping people orient themselves and find their way around a place on foot. So I picked up this book to do a little more research on the subject since the sorts of maps I create definitely do a lot of "lying" to get people around.

It's a good book, but broader than the scope of my work. The parts of the book that did pertain to my project didn't really shed any new light on the subject matter. It was mostly just common sense. I actually found a lot of the subject matter to be obvious, especially about use of shapes, lines, and colors. Of course, I'm trained as a graphic artist, so that could be why it was basic to me. Still, many of the chapters I read through simply because I don't like to skip around and perhaps miss something that's referred to in later chapters. So, the information isn't bad, it just wasn't quite as deep as I hoped.

The book might be a great primer for a person getting into a cartography career. It's probably even better for a decision maker in a position of authority (like a town planning committee) who is has a hard time thinking of things in spatial terms and is more analytical, literal (like accountants?). It wold help them understand the decisions and ideas being presented to them by designers/cartographers/illustrators.

So overall it's a well written book, but for those who are familiar with map making and/or those trained in use of color theory and graphic communication it's a little basic. Perhaps it's greatest strength would be for a map maker to support the decisions he makes with some published research. Especially when his own explanation won't do while presenting an idea to a client for approval.

This book is not quite the treatise on fraud and deception in the world of cartography that may seem evident from the publisher's descriptions. Such examinations do appear here and there, especially with some intriguing coverage of Nazi and Soviet cartographic shenanigans. Instead this is mostly a textbook for beginning geography students on how maps are never completely realistic, and always tell lies about the real environments that they claim to depict. These range from necessary white lies on flat maps depicting the three-dimensional Earth (especially when it comes to rugged terrain or heavily clustered urban areas); to outright propaganda and militarism in political maps. More trouble arises with printing methods, color and shading, and statistical categorizations in data maps (such as those explaining census results). Thus "lying" with maps is not always consciously fraudulent, and is even required when the aim of a map is clarity and utility.

Thus Monmonier has created a rather unique textbook for those who make maps and those who use them in professional decision-making. Unfortunately Monmonier has the habit of belittling everyone who doesn't appreciate how hard cartographers really have it. He continuously degrades mapmakers as incompetent and diabolical, and map users as illiterate and ignorant, topping out in chapter 6 with "...the public's graphic naivete and appalling ignorance of maps." Personal politics abound too, such as in a description of an inaccurate map of Grenada. He constructs fictitious zoning boards and planning commissions in order to show his disagreement with the way those bodies operate. All of the maps illustrating cartographic advertising and boosterism in chapters 5 and 6 are fictitious, even though there are surely real-life examples of maps that could prove Monmonier's points, and chapter 10 devolves into interminable statistics when describing some highly esoteric problems with data (or choropleth) maps. Interested readers might find themselves as exasperated as Monmonier's geography students. [~doomsdayer520~]

I originally bought this book for a GIS class, but blew through it before I even knew what our reading assignments were, just because it was so interesting. Its generally matter-of-fact tone and abundance of illustrations make it rewarding for cartography specialists and laypersons alike.

The title is not deceiving at all. This book walks you through the most common cartographic deceptions, and provides some excellent color guides. If you want to learn how to make influential maps for a cause, this is the book!

This book is about maps in general, which must, as a matter of necessity, reduce the level of detail from the reality they represent. So all maps "lie" in that regard. This book then explains how maps can be made that distort the perception of reality through a variety of methods, both unintentional and otherwise. Along the way, the reader will learn about many different types of maps and the kinds of problems to look out for when using maps.

Honestly, this is the first book (maybe the unique) about this theme. A really great one!! I'm a geographer and I recommend it for students, teachers, researchers, cartographers... for everyone!

This book was on our textbook list, but our college bookstore didn't have it in stock. I have enjoyed, for once, reading a textbook.