Customer Reviews

Maps: Finding Our Place in the World

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This book is a catalog for an extraordinary exhibition of over 130 maps at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore (in collaboration with The Newberry Library).

Some of my favorites include:

Photographic road maps produced for the first automobilists. Page by page the photographs show country lanes, farmhouses and churches with arrows indicating the correct route.

The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad of 1906, which shows routes of competing railroads in thin, spindly lines or not at all.

Harry Beck's great 1933 map of the London Underground, which shows none of London's geography except for the Thames.

The 1566 map by Giovanni Paolo Cimerlini showing religious divisions in the shape of a heart joined at the North Pole in the center of the map. ("The heart is such a common icon of love. It is a hopeful sign that there is possibility of universal harmony. The map came at a time when reformation is tearing apart the Christian world and there's conflict with Islam. There were advanced thinkers who were thinking we can all get along. This map is saying, 'Hey, we're all in this together.' It's an expression of hope.")

Others include a 3,500-year-old clay tablet detailing walls, gates and palaces in the town of Nippur in what is now Iraq; three colored drawings by Leonardo da Vinci showing the typography of Europe; the map Charles Lindbergh carried with him on his history-making flight from New York to Paris annotated in his own handwriting; drawings by J.R.R. Tolkien of his fictional Middle-earth; and a deerskin map drawn by members of an American Indian tribe, where circles connected by lines indicate political ties among communities.

Each of the maps is well described, and the individual map descriptions are enhanced by the introductions to each of the seven chapters. They include: "Finding Our Way", James R. Akerman, "Mapping the World", Denis Cosgrove; "Mapping Parts of the World", Matthew H. Edney; "Mapping American History", Susan Schulten; "Visualizing Nature and Society", Michael Friendly and Gilles Palsky; "Mapping Imaginary Worlds", Ricardo Padrón; and "Consuming Maps", Diane Dillon. There is also a list of references, a comprehensive bibliography and an excellent index.

Both the Field and the Walters have very informative websites devoted to the exhibition, with many of the maps illustrated online. (Both institutes usually keep their exhibits online for several years after the exhibit closes.)

Excellent as the online exhibits are, however, holding the book and studying the maps is much more rewarding.

Robert C. Ross 2008

This publication is a companion book to the exhibit which recently closed at the Chicago Field Museum. It stands on its own as a thought provoking look at many different types of maps and the history of maps. I enjoyed the way the information was presented in this book and found a whole new appreciation for maps and the people who have created them. Many of the maps are works of art.

I was intrigued by the title and the beautiful maps.

Interesting book for anyone with an interest in maps. The chapters, using copious maps, point out the influence of maps across time and discipline and remind us of just how important maps are in how we see, view and form the world.

For example, one chapter discusses the bell curve and how that insight into statistics came through a visual map of data. Other chapters look at how policies and perspectives were formed by what was mapped and what was not. And, how mapping changed as we learned more about how to perceive the world in a realistic way. I love the visual features of the maps and thought placing them in the context of how they influence our vision of the social and political world was fascinating.

Great product. arrived as advertised. What an amazing way to enrich one's mind with this book!