A Persuasive Cartography Roundup

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Joseph Ferdinand Keppler, “Next!” Puck, 7 Sept 1904. P. J. Mode Collection, Cornell University Library.

Cornell University Library has been home to the P. J. Mode Collection of Persuasive Cartography since 2014, and that collection is very much available online. Today, though, a new exhibition of maps from that collection opens at the Carl A. Kroch Library’s Hirshland Exhibition Gallery. Latitude: Persuasive Cartography runs until 21 February 2020.

Cornell isn’t the only repository of maps intended to persuade or propagandize. The Library of Congress acquired a collection of 180 such maps, focusing on war and propaganda in the first half of the 20th century, in 2016.

Previously: Persuasive Cartography; Another Look at Persuasive Cartography; Persuasive Cartography Collection Expands, P. J. Mode Interviewed.

Trump, Maps and Manipulation

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

“Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States, has become a master of the use of the map to assert his agenda.” From election maps to hurricane forecasts, Kenneth Field looks at the ways that Donald Trump uses maps to assert power, dominate the narrative and, well, lie.

So Trump is a serial map-abuser. These three examples clearly show how he uses the map for dominance and to assert his apparent power and possession. This is Trump’s America. He’s simply the latest in a very long line of leaders, politicians, dictators and many others to use maps to try and illustrate a version of the truth that has been cartographically mediated to suit a partisan purpose. Like I said, it’s not wrong to use maps to tell a certain story (apart from when the facts are clearly manipulated which is stretching truth to the realms of plain lies) but it is a case of “reader, beware.”

Previously: ‘A Defilement of a Sacred Trust’; How to Lie with Maps, Third Edition.

The Atlas of Unusual Borders

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Out today: Zoran Nikolic’s Atlas of Unusual Borders (Collins), a book that “presents unusual borders, enclaves and exclaves, divided or non-existent cities and islands.” Another compendium of geographical curiosities: a genre we’ve seen before (see, for example, the Atlas of Improbable Places, Atlas Obscura, the Atlas of Remote Islands, the Atlas of Cursed Places, Beyond the Map or Unruly Places/Off the Map) except this time it’s about borders.

Cartography: The Ideal and Its History

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Cartography (cover)
Amazon
Apple Books
Bookshop

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 “is quite simply indefensible.” Or as the subtitle to the first chapter states: “There is no such thing as cartography, and this is a book about it.”

On the surface this is a startling argument to make, particularly for Edney, who holds two roles that are very much about cartography and its history: he’s the Osher Professor in the History of Cartography at the University of Southern Maine (where, among other things, he’s affiliated with the Osher Map Library) and the current director of the History of Cartography Project. With this book, Edney is essentially undermining the foundations of his own profession.

Continue reading “Cartography: The Ideal and Its History” →

Estonia’s National Atlas Coming Next Month

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Estonia’s first national atlas is coming next month, ERR News reports. Among its 500-odd maps “will also be less serious themed maps, such as the spread of kama and blood sausage in Estonia, a map of 1938 with the birthplaces of the Estonian elite, and a map of the location of public saunas in 1967.” The atlas will be published in Estonian and English.

Monmonier’s Latest: Connections and Content

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Mark Monmonier’s latest book, Connections and Content: Reflections on Networks and the History of Cartography (Esri Press, August ebook/September paperback) is about “the relationships between networks and maps”—what does that mean? Apparently: triangulation networks, postal networks, telegraph networks survey networks, astronomical observations and other underlying data. Steven Seegel interviews Monmonier about the book for the New Books in Geography podcast. [Amazon]

Google Maps and Privacy

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Incognito mode for Google Maps, announced last May, is currently in testing. With the mode enabled, user activity isn’t saved to the user’s Google account. It was made available last week to beta testers using the preview version of the Google Maps Android app.

Meanwhile, Strange Maps looks at the curious lack of Google Street View in Germany and Austria, where privacy concerns are paramount.

Out Next Week: The A-Z History of London

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Out next week from Collins: The A-Z History of London, a coffee table book by Philip Parker that looks at the last century of maps of London. Londonist has some examples. Ollie O’Brien’s review at Mapping London explains what the book is about: “What the book is not, is (just) a history of the A to Z map. Rather, it is a book about the history and geography of London, with A to Z maps used to frame the narrative.” [Amazon, Apple Books]

Parker is also the author of History of Britain in Maps (Collins, 2017); his History of Britain in 12 Maps (Michael Joseph) has apparently been pushed back to June 2020. (I need to update the Map Books of 2019 page.)

‘How to Draw a Map’ Is Not About How to Draw a Map

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

In How to Draw a Map (HarperCollins UK, September), father and son cartographers Alexander and Malcolm Swanston provide “a fascinating meditation on the centuries-old art of map-making, from the first astronomical maps to the sophisticated GPS guides of today.” In other words, title not to be taken literally: as you can tell from the online excerpt available here, it’s a potted history of mapmaking—a familiar genre around these parts. [Amazon, Apple Books]

Everything’s Coming Up Spilhaus

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
John Nelson

John Nelson reports that the Spilhaus projection will be supported in the next version of ArcGIS—version 2.5, to be released in a few months. This odd projection, which centres Antarctica on a world map showing the oceans as a single, uninterrupted body of water; went viral last year. Requests for ArcGIS support soon followed. Thing is, ArcGIS support requires the math behind the projection: figuring out that math took some sleuthing. The Spilhaus is, it turns out, basically an oblique aspect of the Adams World in a Square II projection.

Previously: About the Spilhaus Projection.

When Artists Drew Maps: A New Exhibition in Paris

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A new exhibition opens today at the Archives Nationales in Paris: Quand les artistes dessinaient les cartes (“When Artists Drew Maps”), an exploration of vues figurées —what we might refer to today as chorographic maps or panoramas—drawn by artists from the 14th to the 16th century. “Presented for the most part for the first time to the public, these works shed new light on the landscapes and scenes of everyday life at the turn of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.”1 Nearly 100 original maps on display. At the Hôtel de Soubise site in Paris until 7 January 2020, 8€/5€. [Tony Campbell]

The New York Subway Map Gets More Rethinking

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John Tauranac is having second thoughts. Tauranac is the former MTA map designer whose committee replaced Massimo Vignelli’s diagrammatic subway map with a more geographical one in 1979; that map, with modifications and updates, is still in use today. He now thinks the map needs an overhaul, according to the New York Post, and at 80 he thinks he’s the one to do it. The Post article includes some of his suggestions; the MTA is, shall we say, not eager for his help.

(Tauranac has been active on this file for a while: he released his own subway map in 2008: it’s a folded map that is geographical on one side and diagrammatic on the other. It seems to be out of print, but I still have a copy in my files.)

And a perusal of my own archives will tell you that the project to reimagine and rethink the New York subway map has been going on a very long time. Last May Jun Seong Ahn posted a rethinking of the subway map—not as the usual poster, but as a wide horizontal map posted above the heads of commuters, as you commonly see in other cities:

Jun Seong Ahn

Debates about the New York subway map generally involve posters on trains and in stations—flat, paper, static maps. Meanwhile the MTA is moving to digital displays over the next few years, which may afford train and station maps the opportunity to be as dynamic and changing as the maps on riders’ phones. So far, though, the maps are low-resolution and static.

Previously: New York Subway Maps; Tauranac’s New York Subway Map; Mark Ovenden: The French (Re-)Connection; A Talk About Designing the New York Subway Map on Dec. 7; Debating the New York Subway Map; New York Subway Line Posters; Anthony Denaro’s Map of All of NYC’s Transit; New York Subway Track Map.

Scottish Witches

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

witches logoThe University of Edinburgh’s online Witches map is the result of a data and visualization internship project—the intern cheekily referred to as the Witchfinder General—to put the data from the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft Database on the map. Nearly four thousand people were accused of witchcraft in Scotland between 1563 and 1736; nearly 85 percent were women. The mapped data includes where the accused lived, where they were detained, where they were put on trial, and where they died, when that data is available. Story at The Scotsman.