books – Page 16 – The Map Room

After the Map

Published on 18 July 201618 July 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

William Rankin’s After the Map: Cartography, Navigation, and the Transformation of Territory in the Twentieth Century is out this month from the University of Chicago Press (Amazon, iBooks). The book’s website explains in depth what it’s about, and makes all the book’s illustrations and data available for free download. [GIS Lounge]

This book can be read at two scales. Narrowly, it is a history of the mapping sciences in the twentieth century that situates technologies like GPS within a longer trajectory of spatial knowledge. But more expansively, by connecting geographic knowledge to territorial politics and new ways of navigating the world, it is also a political and cultural history of geographic space itself.

I’ve posted a few of Rankin’s earlier projects for the Radical Cartography website on The Map Room; see for example City Income Donuts and The World’s Population by Latitude and Longitude.

The Great British Colouring Map

Published on 18 July 201618 July 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

Another map colouring book has just been announced, this one from the Ordnance Survey: “The book will take you on an immersive colouring-in journey around Great Britain, from the coasts and forests to our towns and countryside. Expect to see iconic cities, recognisable tourist spots and historical locations across England, Scotland and Wales via the 55 illustrations. The Great British Colouring Map also includes a stunning gatefold of London. We can’t wait to share it with you—it will be on shelves in October.” Pre-order at Amazon.

Previously: A-Z Maps Colouring Book; Albion’s Glorious Ile: A 400-Year-Old Map Colouring Book; City Maps: An Adult Colouring Book.

Atlas Obscura, the Book

Published on 26 June 201619 September 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

Always nice to see a familiar website turn up in book form. This time it’s Atlas Obscura’s turn. Altas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders comes out from Workman Publishing in September but can be pre-ordered now.

See my Map Books of 2016 page for other books of interest coming out later this year (several of which I have added within the last week or so).

Update, 19 September: My review of Atlas Obscura.

The Chicago Tribune Reviews Two Map Books

Published on 9 June 20169 June 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

Writing for the Chicago Tribune, Patrick Reardon reviews two map books I’ve mentioned before, albeit briefly: Cartographic Grounds: Projecting the Landscape Imaginary, edited by Jill Desimini and Charles Waldheim, which comes out in a few days; and Mind the Map: Illustrated Maps and Cartography, edited by Antonis Antoniou, Robert Klanten and Sven Ehmann, which came out last September. “Each of these books aims to show a wide spectrum of map-making,” writes Reardon, “and together they cover just about the entire waterfront.” [WMS]

Previously: Cartographic Grounds; Mind the Map.

Cartographic Grounds

Published on 7 June 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

Next week sees the publication of Cartographic Grounds: Projecting the Landscape Imaginary by Jill Desimini and Charles Waldheim (Princeton Architectural Press). From the publisher: “While documenting this shift in representation from the material and physical description toward the depiction of the unseen and often immaterial, Cartographic Grounds takes a critical view toward the current use of data mapping and visualization and calls for a return to traditional cartographic to reimagine the manifestation and manipulation of the ground itself.” Cartographic Grounds’ ten chapters each focus on one cartographic technique; each of these techniques is illustrated in Atlas Obscura’s post last month about the book. [Benjamin Hennig]

More books have been added to the Map Books of 2016 page: have a look. Some are available right now; others you’ll have to preorder. As usual, buying via this website helps support The Map Room.

I thought about doing a similar page listing map colouring books for adults, but it seems redundant when you can just refer to the colouring books tag (or the coloring books tag, if you’re going to be insistently American).

Maps of the Netherlands Antilles

Published on 1 June 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

If you can read Dutch, there’s a new book about the old maps of the Netherlands Antilles: Wim Renkema’s Kaarten van de Nederlandse Antillen: Curaçao, Aruba, Bonaire, Saba, Sint Eustatius en Sint Maarten tot 1900 (Brill, May 2016). Includes an English summary if you can’t; I presume it’s heavily illustrated. More from the Daily Herald of St. Maarten. Buy at Amazon. [WMS]

A-Z Maps Colouring Book

Published on 25 May 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

There are more map colouring books out there than I realized (I’m going to have to compile a list). For example, A-Z Maps’ Maps: A Colouring Book, which came out last October. From the publisher: “This adult colouring book includes a number of street maps from around Great Britain including London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Manchester, together with some more unusual designs—contour lines around Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon and some fascinating map mandalas (intricate patterns created by repeating sections of mapping around a central point).” Buy at Amazon. [A-Z Maps]

Previously: Albion’s Glorious Ile: A 400-Year-Old Map Colouring Book; City Maps: An Adult Colouring Book.

Albion’s Glorious Ile: A 400-Year-Old Map Colouring Book

Published on 24 May 201625 May 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

What’s old is new again. Maps created by engraver William Hole to illustrate Michael Drayton’s 17th-century, 15,000-line poem Poly-Olbion are being reprinted—as an adult colouring book called Albion’s Glorious Ile, coming out next month from Unicorn Press (pre-order at Amazon).

As the Guardian article about the book points out, hand-colouring maps and illustrations was a common activity before full-colour printing was a thing, so the current mania for adult colouring books—Gretchen Peterson’s City Maps: A Coloring Book for Adults is The Map Room’s best-selling book this year by a large, large margin—can in some ways be seen as a reversion rather than a new thing.

The Guardian has a gallery of Hole’s maps (taken from the colouring book). The Poly-Olbion Project also has a page about Hole’s maps. [WMS]

Previously: City Maps: An Adult Colouring Book.

Pinpoint Now Out

Published on 18 May 201618 May 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

Greg Milner’s Pinpoint: How GPS Is Changing Technology, Culture and Our Minds is out this month from W. W. Norton. (The British edition, published by Granta, comes out in July.) Pinpoint explores the social impact of GPS, which sounds very interesting. I’ll have to lay hands on a copy. Reviews: Will Self in the Guardian, Kirkus Reviews and Maclean’s. Amazon, iBooks.

Previously: ‘Could Society’s Embrace of GPS Be Eroding Our Cognitive Maps?’

Six Maps from Connectography

Published on 15 May 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

The Washington Post’s Wonkblog has an interview with Parag Khanna that features six interesting maps from his book Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization (Amazon, iBooks); each map is discussed in some detail. [Cartophilia]

Previously: The U.S. as Seven Mega Regions.

It’s ‘Too Early’ to Announce the Fate of the Maine Atlas

Published on 10 May 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

It’s been three months since Garmin announced its purchase of DeLorme, and there’s still no word on the future of DeLorme’s Maine Atlas and Gazetteer, at least if this item in the May 2016 issue of Down East is any indication.

As of press time, Garmin hasn’t committed either to keeping or killing the Gazetteer, but the PR mumbo jumbo doesn’t sound good: “We’re currently evaluating the DeLorme product roadmap, but it’s too early to make any official announcements on our plan going forward,” one press rep told us. “We are still continuing to sell [Gazetteers] and we don’t expect that to change, um, right away,” said another.

The article also notes that, unlike the atlas, Google Maps and GPS don’t indicate road quality—which in rural Maine is very much a thing. [MAPS-L]

Previously: Mainers Speak Out on the DeLorme Atlas; ‘Keep Your Hands Off My Gazetteer’; Maine Reacts to DeLorme’s Acquisition by Garmin; Garmin Is Buying DeLorme.

A few more books have been added to the Map Books of 2016 page (for which I have relied upon reader submissions, as well as shameless cribbing from Bert Johnson’s indefatigable posts to the Washington Map Society Facebook group; he often tracks upcoming book releases).

A Book About the Hydrographic Survey of Bermuda

Published on 2 May 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

Adrian Webb’s Thomas Hurd, RN and His Hydrographic Survey of Bermuda, a book about the hydrographic survey of Bermuda conducted by Royal Navy hydrographer Thomas Hurd between 1789 and 1797, has just been published by the National Museum of Bermuda, the Bermudian Royal Gazette reports. Not available on Amazon, no link at the Museum’s website. [WMS]