Customer Reviews

Things Maps Don't Tell Us: An Adventure into Map Interpretation

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In high school we took a lot of geography, and learned about "tombolos" and "terminal moraines" and such, but damned if the teacher ever gave you an example.

This book has an interesting approach - it shows a map on one side, the text points out interesting or unusually features, and then a second page with diagram and text explains the origin of the feature.

It seems like a simple idea, but it's an approach I've seen in few other places.

Some negatives:
This is a re-print of a fairly old book, so perhaps (according to the new forword) some of the theory is a little old. I feel however, the bulk of the material is still valid, and well worth it. (It's too bad some aspiring professor somewhere does write an up-to-date book using the same approach)

The new forword doesn't add much to the book, and the publisher might better have left it out.

I haven't read the paperback, but I just came across my copy of the 1956 hard cover and devoured it with renewed interest.Professor Lobeck selects 72 examples of geography and on the facing page illustrates the geological activity that resulted in that geography.New York harbor, Long Island, the Florida peninsula, the Great Lakes, the island arcs of the Pacific and the Caribbean are among the many mapped and explained geologically.A great book for the student of earth science and the traveller interested in maps and why the our earth is so different and interesting.

Love of maps runs in my family. Maybe there is a map-gene. Or maybe that fact that my dad owned this book is what caused this love of maps to be passed on to me and my sister.

When my dad passed away, this was the one book I wanted as my inheritance.

i know, sounds silly, but i picked up an old hardback of armin k. lobeck's masterpiece from a street "vendor" in new york about 15 years ago. paid 25c for it. it has influenced my perception of maps, geology, and the histories of the earth, life, and civilization ever since. it's a simple book, really, but full of concepts and ideas that you just don't get anywhere else here in the 21st century. also, the (hand drawn) illustration is unusually enlightening while exhibiting a charm and elegance that is lost on graphic designers these days.

the only reason anyone would ever go to the trouble of producing a document like this is because they were truly passionate about the ideas they were presenting. it's very sincere, and you'll never look at maps (or the world) the same way again.

This old volume is a true gem. Rivers, mountains, lakes, and other surface features of the earth are the result of interactions between the rocks and the erosive forces of rivers, glaciers, and wind. Lobeck provides a catalog of landforms that are plainly visible on a variety of maps, and for each discusses the geologic factors that are responsible.

Anyone interested in geology, geography, or history will benefit from reading this book. Yes, it's old. But it is still the best of its kind.