Customer Reviews

The Mapmakers: Revised Edition

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"The Mapmakers" by John Noble Wilford (ISBN 0-375-40929-7) published by Knopf/Random House in August 2000 is an updated version of the 1981 text. The revisions reflect the radical changes in the process of map-making that we already take for granted. It is of interest to anyone who has ever paddled along a complex shoreline, looked at a map, and thought " I could be here, there or anywhere". Or to anyone who has spent a winter dreaming of a lake or river, seen only in the mind's eye aided by a "window" created by maps...

This book covers the history of cartography or map-making from ancient times to the present day . Drawing on various sources, it explores the "need" to create maps both as a concrete form of communication describing the physical location of objects and our relationship to them, as well as the philosophical beliefs which can make "maps lie" based on the ideological bias of the map-maker, and the prejudices of the user. It traces in chronological format the evolution of maps (beginning in pre-history judging from some cave paintings) , from the Near East and Egypt in the period from 2000BC, to Greek philosophical conceptions of the world, to the civil engineering and mapping of the Romans, to the laughably inaccurate and fabricated maps of the early Middle Ages reflecting Europe's inward turning in the pre-Renaissance period. The Age of Discovery and the slow progress in developing maps for coastal trade reaching further and further from home, the new ( and rediscovered) technologies that aided the "mapping of both the African route to Asia, as well as the nascent understanding of the New World coastline, are covered in great detail.

Time is given to the development of map projections, problems of determining latitude and longitude, early and modern navigational devices, as well as the individuals who pioneered new concepts in mapping, often with their achievements lying fallow for another 100 years or more. Problems of mapping even long settled areas like France are discussed in the context of new systems of measuring land, as well as the State's "need" to quantify it's holdings in a more scientific manner.

The author develops his concepts within the book like small streams joining to form a great river, over a great distance and time. The final third of the book is a torrent , as the various technologies are refined, demand for accurate maps increases, and communication becomes almost instant. In the discussion of the modern era there is a already a quaintness to the debates as to whether map making might ever be "automated", or derived from computerized data alone. In the final chapters the book moves beyond the mapping of coast lines, cities and Earth itself, to mapping projects of Mars and the Universe itself. Yet the author retains his premise that maps locate the human mind in space and time, and are as essential to humans as language itself. An interesting premise early in the book is that the creation of maps may have pre-dated the complexities of language. Certainly anyone who has ever had someone "draw them a map" when words and language were insufficient , might be intrigued by both the history and ideas contained in this book!

Wilford's training as a journalist served him well in writing this book. He has written a highly readable and information-packed history of cartography that gives enough analysis to please the scientifically adept reader while maintaining a brisk narrative that kept me enthralled. I especially enjoyed the early chapters on the discovery and exploration of the New World. Great stuff.

I bought this at Schiphol Airport as I had nothing else to read ... doesn't sound much of a recommendation, does it? - but the small cover photo of two surveyors perched on a precarious butte, though simple, begged my attention. It succeeded - and grabbed!

This book is deceptively large, due to the small font, tight spacing and thin margins.
But it needs to be:- there is so much information crammed in here ... all that the layman should ever need to know about maps & mapmaking, surveyors & surveying and discoverers and their discoveries. My only complaint is that there are no colour illustrations, which would have amplified the descriptions greatly.

The narrative style of Pulitzer winner Mr.Wilford makes for easy, yet highly informative reading, taking us from early Chinese maps with their variable scale to modern digital mapping of the cosmos, all the while inserting interesting snippets of fact and conjecture. He draws heavily on other authors (showing the depth of his research), but only to illustrate and augment the narrative. I took longer than usual to read this book, simply because I wished to savour the experience.

Required reading for all who wish to know how we came to view the world as we see it now. ...

Many aspects of world history are seen in a different light after reading how man learned to accurately map and use maps for world exploration. European and Americas mapping is handled extensively. Africa and Asia are lacking in historical context, perhaps due to lost or unavailable records. Being published in the early 1980's, the book is missing the last 2 decades of technological advances of Global Positioning Systems in use today. Otherwise a WONDERFUL READ for anyone interested in geoscience, geography, maps, or history.

I have always been fascinated by maps, as both sources of information and representations of nature's design. I'm glad I'm not alone in that regard, and anyone with an interest in maps or mapmaking will be intrigued by this heavily informative book. Wilford takes us from the very earliest maps of ancient times and lays out in-depth histories of all the uses, effects, and technologies of maps up to the present day. The early parts of the book also tell us about the often unexpected challenges faced by mapmakers, such as drawing straight lines on the round Earth (which was later found to not be a perfect sphere anyway), projecting the round Earth onto flat maps, and the sheer enormity of the task of mapping the Earth itself. It turns out that these challenges even make many current maps inaccurate. Later chapters move into modern technologies such as radar or aerial photography, which are being used to more accurately map the Earth's landscapes, as well as the ocean floors and the surfaces of other planets. Just note that the second half of the book often slows down significantly with various technological descriptions of each new mapmaking tool or method, which may not tickle the fancy of non-scientific readers. But in any case, after this book you'll have a new appreciation for maps and their makers. [~doomsdayer520~]

I agree with the other reviews about this book, but what I think is missing is emphasis on the more recent usages of maps. At first maps were created to fill in the gaps of undiscovered areas of the world. This is enough to excite the imagination and enthusiasm of anyone with a bent toward histroy. But, maps are now becoming devices for use by agencies and persons more interested in distribution of ideas, beliefs, and the like. Mapmakers have turned their efforts inward as well as outward, as in the case of the maping of Mars and the Moon, to meet the demands of Social Scientists in what we can only hope will be for the benefit of mankind as before. There will be hardly a book, be it historical, about art, or science that can be read after reading this one but that relevence will shine through for the benefit of one discipline or another. Rather than get too involved, however, I recemmend the book be read for the enjoyment of learning. It is well written and most informative.

I love giving people books as gifts. Last year, I gave this book to my father for Christmas. He seemed to really enjoy it, and this year he gave it back to me to read. Lucky me!

As you can tell from the title, this book is a general history of mapmaking. The subject matter didn't exactly jump off of the page and slap me in the face when I sat down to read it, but Wilford has a very even writing style that kept me very interested in the subject matter.

As I read, I discovered that although I am very much a lover of history, I really had no idea how mapmaking progressed through history. I always took for granted the maps that were presented to me, never really understanding what was involved in the creation of them.

It's a facinating story, and learning it has deepened my understanding of history. Wilford's account of the story kept me engrossed, and all the while he was feeding me names of people and places that I really should have known more about prior to reading this book. For example, I had no idea who John Harrison was before opening this book, but now realize just how important his invention of an accurate marine clock was to the history of the world. There are gems of knowledge throughout this book, and thankfully they are presented in an entertaining way.

The only time I can say that I became a bit lost was when Wilford was discussing some of the mathematical points of mapmaking, but luckly for me he kept this discussion to a minimum. Wilford did an excellent job of presenting the history of something he seems to care very much about to the layperson. I believe that anyone who has even a passing interest in history to give this book a try. It may open your eyes to a world that you knew existed, but had no idea how it was made.

This is a well-written book that provides a rich, deep history of the people behind the maps: Mercator, Magellan, Columbus, Cook, Cassini, et al. These historical figures and many others are discussed along with how necessity, ingenuity, and determination combined to drive these men to produce maps used by travellers, adventurers, and politicians.

However, a significant lack of technical detail really hurts this book. The author provides ample pages to the mapmakers but not enough to the actual mapmaking process, which is infuriating given that the book is over 500 pages long. For example, the methodology of triangulation is glossed over too briefly; instead of trusting the reader to have even a high school level knowledge of geometry, the author only states that the lengths of the two non-base sides are determined "with some calculation" (chapter 7). Basic trigonometric and geometric concepts are barely mentioned at all. As another example, when discussing the determination of latitude, the author only states that "... Picard was particularly skilled in using angle-measuring instruments and mathematical tables to fix latitude by determining the angular height of the moon above the horizon" (chapter 8). No more detail is given on this important calculation; even the most basic geometrical figures or expressions are left out. Further, throughout the book, I was anxiously waiting for the author to describe how explorers and sailors were able to chart out coastlines accurately, but this topic is never discussed.

The last few chapters, presumably written in 2000 as part of the latest edition of this book, are quite lacking as well. GPS, which was already quite popular in the 1990s, is not given enough depth. There is no mention of why four points are needed for a fix, nor is there any discussion of when or why former President Reagan enabled civilian use of GPS.

Also, the quality of the illustrations is surprisingly bad. There are about 40 illustrations, many of very old maps, spread through the book, and most are quite poor or illegible. What is more frustrating is that it was quite often the case that a shown map had little to do with the text surrounding it. And as stated above, there are no illustrations describing the basic geometric concepts (like triangulation) upon which mapmaking is built. The only informational graphic is a listing of different map projections in chapter 6.

Overall, this is a tremendous book on the history of the mapmakers: the explorers and scientists and the context in which they made their great contributions. However, for a book of this length, there clearly is not enough information given on the mapmaking science itself, which is rather disappointing.

I read the original edition of this book -- several times. It's one of my favorite nonfiction books, ever. Each chapter is an exciting story and reveals another aspect of maps, mapmaking, and quests. Highly, highly recommended!

Perhaps maps will be incomprehensible and irrelevant to the next generation of people raised on GPS and navigation system, but even when that sad day arrives this book will provide fascinating reading. The sheer effort and astonishing ingenuity applied in mapping the world is on full display in Wilford's book. Just to pick some interesting nuggets:

* The ancient Egyptians knew the earth was round and managed to experimentally estimate the circumference with about 10% accuracy, pretty astonishing given what they had to work with.

* Newton suggested that if the earth was not solid then it should not be a sphere, setting off French expeditions to the north of Sweden and South America (as close to the equator as they could get) to measure the distance of 1 degree latitude. The latter fought through jungles for many years before returning with their result, only to find that the Swedish expedition had returned and proven Newton right years earlier.

* As world travel expanded in Europe astronomy developed rapidly not because people just liked stargazing, but because it was a key to navigating on the oceans. In particular, Galileo's keen interest in telescopes and the moon arose from his belief that careful observations could finally solve the longitude problem - you can't tell where around the circumference of the globe that you are based just on star positions.

* Everest led the British expedition to map India and did so in a huge triangulation effort - but he never got to see the mountain named after him.

* Mason and Dixon were tasked "simply" with defining the boundary between the disputing Penn (Pennsylvania) and Calvert (Maryland) family properties and it was only later that this became a symbolic boundary between the North and the South.

* The sharp jump in the boundary between Kentucky and Tennessee on even today's maps (go have a look) is a mistake resulting from errant compass tracking from east to west that nowhere nearly lined up with a later track from west to east. Oops.

Detours into clock making, mapping Central Asia under threat of death if caught, and later chapters discussing current technologies, the book is full of interesting stuff. My interest wanes a bit as modernity approaches, in part because the human element is increasingly replaced by technical gadgetry, albeit interesting gadgetry.

I picked the original edition of this book up in a bargain basement by pure chance. That was a very lucky day as this is one of the most interesting books I have ever read. If you care less about lasers, atomic clocks, satellite networks, and whatever else may be in the updated edition, the old one will do just fine. It will still tell you how a mountain full or iron will screw up your trusty compass and lead you astray from your straight line, so you know what to be aware of when your cool navi fails.