Matthew Edney reviews Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther’s When Maps Become the World (University of Chicago Press, 2020), a philosophy of science book that engages with maps and representation—with what Winther calls “map thinking.” Edney isn’t convinced by… More
Search Results for: Edney
Reviews of Edney’s Cartography
Matthew Edney’s Cartography: The Ideal and Its History was published by the University of Chicago Press last April. I have a review copy and a review is in the works. While you’re waiting for me… More
Another Maps Issue from Library of Congress Magazine
The May-June 2021 issue of Library of Congress Magazine is entirely given over to maps: a lot of short one-page features on all sorts of subjects from Ortelius to COVID. Direct link to the PDF… More
The Spherical Cow Projection
Today is The Map Room’s 18th anniversary. When I started this blog back in March 2003, it was as an exercise in self-education: I liked maps a lot, but knew very little about them, and… More
Upcoming Workshops
Two workshops/courses coming in June: Australian author and illustrator Kathleen Jennings will teach a workshop on fantasy mapmaking in June: the focus of Map Making and World Building is “on story and art,” the mapmaking… More
A History of Maps in Games
Matthew Edney explores the history of maps and games, beginning with the three basic forms of early map games: playing cards, board games, and puzzles, all of which had the “improvement” of youth as their… More
Mapping Maine
Mapping Maine: The Land and Its Peoples, 1677-1842, an exhibition of maps celebrating Maine’s bicentennial while acknowledging the Wabanaki presence and history in the space that became Maine, opens today at the Osher Map Library… More
A County-by-County COVID-19 Map
COVD-19 is hitting the United States very hard right now. This interactive map from the Harvard Global Health Institute measures COVID-19 risk at the county level. The four colour-coded risk levels are based on a… More
The History of Cartography’s Fourth Volume, Now (Almost) Out
I believe that today is (nominally) the publication date of the fourth volume in the History of Cartography Project: The History of Cartography, Volume 4: Cartography in the European Enlightenment. As with other volumes of… More
Still More Coronavirus Maps
Kera Till’s “Commuting in Corona Times” is a transit map of the new normal. More at Untapped New York. On a personal level, the coronavirus map I stare at the most is the one closest… More
In Search of Lost Islands
Three books look at islands that never were.
Map Books of 2020
Here are the books that, to my knowledge, have been published or are scheduled to be published in 2020. To suggest a book for this list, please contact me. If you are a publisher, author… More
‘Cartograph’: History of a Back Formation
Inspired by its appearance in a recent science fiction novel, Matthew Edney explores the history of the odd word “cartograph”—a back formation of “cartography” whose existence suggests circumstances in which “map” is somehow insufficient. Edney traces… More
Cartography: The Ideal and Its History
Matthew H. Edney’s Cartography: The Ideal and Its History (University of Chicago Press, April) is a full-throated jeremiad against the concept of cartography itself—the ideal of cartography, which after 237 densely argued pages Edney says… More
History of Cartography Project Updates
The first three volumes of the History of Cartography Project will be published in Chinese next year, “completing a translation project that began in 2014,” the Project announced on Facebook last week. The Project was… More