In an interview in the Spring 2026 issue of The World Today, William Rankin, author of Radical Cartography, looks at cartography in the present geopolitical situation and argues that maps need to be up to the challenge of today’s complications: “[M]ainstream cartographic conventions are often inadequate to show a complexity we do understand; and there are situations where we cannot say with confidence where we would put the lines even if we tried. The map itself should be messier. It should raise questions of ambiguity and multiple claims, rather than presenting a simplified version and then walking it back in a footnote.”