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 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).
I have a longstanding interest in the extent to which people throughout history could access cultural production: books, music and so forth. Essentially, the economics of cultural life. So when I was poking around the University of Chicago Press website last month (previously), I was very interested to stumble across a book that came out last year: Genevieve Carlton’s Worldly Consumers: The Demand for Maps in Renaissance Italy (Amazon, iBooks), which examines the ways in which private individuals had access to maps. As you can imagine, very relevant to my interests.
It’s certainly not the only book relevant to those interests. There’s Susan Schulten’s and Martin Brückner’s work, of course; and I should also take a look at Christine Marie Petto’s When France Was King of Cartography: The Patronage and Production of Maps in Early Modern France (Amazon, iBooks). Expensive monographs all; methinks I need a university library card.
Previously: The Social Life of Maps.
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]
Gear Patrol interviews Ben Olins and Jane Smillie, the founders of travel guide publisher Herb Lester Associates. “[A]fter designing three unique maps in three major cities, they realized there was something to the idea of curating small guides (nothing too expensive, or too ordinary) accompanied by hand-drawn maps. As the company celebrates its sixth birthday this month, we caught up with the founders to chat about maps with personality, curating entire cities and the pitfalls of travel.” Amazon [NLS Maps]
Rather than doing a gift guide to map books for the holiday season, as I’ve done in previous years (2015, 2014, 2013), I’ve created a Map Books of 2016 page, organized by month, that I’ll be updating throughout the year as new titles are announced. Possibly you will find it useful.
Produced by the Malta Map Society and Maltese publisher BDL, Albert Ganado and Joseph Schirò’s Pre-Siege Maps of Malta “embraces all the pre-siege separate maps of Malta, whether manuscript or printed, as well as the appearance of Malta on the maps of the Mediterranean drawn by Ptolemy in the second century AD, by Al-Idrisi in 1157, and by practically all the cartographers that came after them up to 1564.” More from the Times of Malta. Not available at Amazon, but can be purchased directly from the publisher. [WMS/WMS]
While poking around the University of Chicago Press website yesterday, I noticed that a fourth edition of Norman J. W. Thrower’s history of cartography textbook, Maps and Civilization: Cartography in Culture and Society, is due out this month: Amazon. The changes from the third edition (Amazon, iBooks) appear to be limited: “For the fourth edition of Maps and Civilization, Thrower has added an additional chapter that serves to bring the volume completely up to date.” My gaps in cartographic knowledge are such that I’ve never read this book; this may be an opportunity to rectify that.
Out this month from Amberley Publishing: Mapping the Airways. “Drawing on fascinating and unique material from the British Airways archive, curator Paul Jarvis focuses on the beautiful map artwork used over nearly 100 years of history to chart our voyages through the skies—from early adverts to twenty-first-century on-board moving maps—and the vital maps and charts used by pilots and navigators.” (The paperback edition seems to be delayed until June on the U.S. Amazon store, though you can still get the Kindle version.) Here’s a short piece about the book in the trade journal Advance. [Tony Campbell]
Cartographic Japan: A History in Maps came out last month from the University of Chicago Press. It’s a collection of 58 academic essays edited by Kären Wigen, Sugimoto Fumiko and Cary Karacas (see the table of contents) that provide, in the words of the publisher, “close analysis of one hundred maps from the late 1500s to the present day, each one treated as a distinctive window onto Japan’s tumultuous history.” Amazon, iBooks. [WMS]
Jared Lando’s How to Draw Fantasy Art and RPG Maps (Impact, August 2015) is a step-by-step guide to fantasy cartography. That it professes to teach how to draw “authentic fantasy maps” is as clear evidence as any that fantasy maps have a clearly defined style that is difficult to deviate from. This is a book I need to track down, stat. Amazon, iBooks.
Gretchen Peterson has announced City Maps: A Coloring Book for Adults. Adult colouring books have rapidly become a Thing; Peterson once wondered why there weren’t any map colouring books (which is a damn good question: the closest I’d been able to find is Splendid Cities) so she made one herself. “I’m excited about this because normally I make maps that are more scientific, regulatory, or otherwise government oriented but this is a collection of maps for everyone. And what’s more, everyone can color them just the way they want to!” Available now from Amazon.
Universe Today has a review of The Chang’E-1 Topographic Atlas of the Moon (Springer, February 2016) a book of lunar maps based on digital elevation model data and stereo imagery from the CNSA’s Chang’e-1 spacecraft. (The first edition was published in Chinese and English in 2012.)
Here’s a profile of Thomas Durrer, the University of Virginia detective assigned to the Gilbert Bland map theft case, in the spring 2016 issue of Virginia, the university’s alumni magazine. [via]
Bland’s career predated Forbes Smiley’s (he lacked Smiley’s ostensible pedigree) and was the focus of Miles Harvey’s 2000 book The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime (Amazon, iBooks).
Smiley was, of course, the subject of Michael Blanding’s 2014 book The Map Thief (Amazon, iBooks; see my review). Blanding is on a bit of a campus speaking tour at the moment, discussing the Smiley case. He’s at the University of Florida tonight, the University of Miami tomorrow night, and more college campuses in April and May.
