Tag: books

Review: Mapmatics

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

The first intimation I had that maps involved mathematics was when I looked up a map projection and came face to face with the equation that generated it. Math was never my strongest subject, so it’s probably for the best that I never went into cartography. Especially since it turns out that there’s a lot more math hidden behind the maps we use on a daily basis than you might think, a point demonstrated in detail by Paulina Rowińska’s book, Mapmatics, which came out in June from Picador in the U.K. and from Belknap in the U.S. in September.

Book cover: Mapmatics (US edition)

Cartographic problems are often mathematical problems: Gauss’s Remarkable Theorem demonstrates that a flat projection of a round globe must necessarily add distortion. Surveying by triangulation is simple trigonometry. The coastline paradox, whereby the length of a coastline depends on the scale at which it’s measured, is because the coastline is fractal. Real-world navigational problems can be solved via topology and graph theory, algorithms and heuristics. The takeaway from this book is these things are math, and that math is at the heart of so much of this.

Rowińska is a mathematician and science writer, and she very much approaches her subject from the math side of things. Making the subject accessible to non-mathematicians is no small challenge, especially when moving to subjects that, while absolutely part of the discipline of mathematics, don’t obviously code as such to normies. Graph theory, number theory, probability density function and topology make their appearances. (I confess to being surprised at the omission of GPS, but now that I think about it, GPS is really about timekeeping and physics.) No less a challenge is finding the balance between explaining the mathematical concepts and explaining how they apply to mapping, and doing so in a way that doesn’t completely lose the plot and turn the whole thing into a math textbook with cartographic examples.

Book cover for the U.K. edition of Paulina Rowińska’s Mapmatics (Picador).

On balance I think Rowińska mostly succeeds: there were plenty of points where the math was still esoteric to me, but I still got that, yes, this was math, and here’s what it does in these cases. As the book progresses the math gets a bit more remote from popular understanding, and the map side of things is less about maps than the data being mapped, but even then the examples are absolutely real-world and relatable (gerrymandering, disease mapping), and there are plenty of a-ha moments coming from the math behind familiar puzzles like the travelling salesman problem and the four-colour theorem.

I received an electronic review copy from the publisher.

Related: Map Books of 2024.

Mapmatics
by Paulina Rowińska
Picador, 6 Jun 2024 (UK) | Belknap, 17 Sep 2024 (US)
Amazon (Canada, UK) | Bookshop

A Moving Border

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Screenshot from the Italian Limes website, showing the positions of solar powered GPS sensors on a glacier straddling the Austro-Italian border.
Italian Limes (screenshot)

Part research project, part art installation, the Italian Limes project explored a quirk about the Italian border that frankly boggles my mind a bit. Italy’s alpine frontiers with Switzerland and Austria generally follows the watershed line. Thanks to climate change and shrinking glaciers, that line has been shifting, so Italy entered into agreements with Austria (in 2006) and Switzerland (in 2009) to redefine their borders as moving borders, shifting as the watershed line changes. (This is not something I would have expected: see, for example, U.S. state boundaries remaining where the Mississippi River used to be, rather than its present course). Italy’s official maps are updated every two years. In 2014 and 2016 Italian Limes dropped solar-powered GPS sensors on the surface of a glacier to track the shifts in the border in real time; the accompanying art installations slash exhibitions allowed visitors to plot the border at that moment. A book followed in 2019. [Maps Mania]

Two Map Books from the Bodleian

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Images of two books showing their jacket covers: Kris Butler's Drink Maps in Victorian Britain (left) and Debbie Hall's Adventures in Maps (right).

Some coverage of two map books published earlier this year by Bodleian Library. First, Atlas Obscura interviews Kris Butler, whose Drink Maps in Victorian Britain looks at how the temperance movement used maps to fight excessive alcohol consumption. They were, apparently, directly inspired by John Snow’s cholera map. From the interview:

Drink maps were specific to targeting the U.K. magistrates, to try to get these lawmakers to stop granting licenses. So it had a really specific legislative, regulatory goal. […] In one case [in 1882, in the borough of Over Darwen in Lancashire, England], after looking at a drink map, the magistrates decided to close half of the places to buy alcohol. Their rationale was, even if we close half of these, you still don’t have to walk more than two minutes to buy another beer, which I just think is the most beautiful rationale I’ve ever read. It was challenged, and it held up on appeal.

Meanwhile, the Bodleian’s own Map Room Blog (no relation) points to Debbie Hall’s Adventures in Maps, a book about maps and travel and exploration. From the book listing: “The twenty intriguing journeys and routes featured in this book range from distances of a few miles to great adventures across land, sea, air and space. Some describe the route that a traveller followed, some are the results of exploration and others were made to show future travellers the way to go, accompanied by useful and sometimes very beautiful maps.” I reviewed Debbie Hall’s Treasures from the Map Room (also no relation) in 2016.

Adventures in Maps by Debbie Hall: Amazon (Canada, UK) | Bookshop
Drink Maps in Victorian Britain by Kris Butler: Amazon (Canada, UK) | Bookshop

See also: Map Books of 2024.

Site Updates and Upgrades

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

More than two dozen book listings have just been added to the Map Books of 2024 page. I’ve also been making some long overdue tweaks to the design and functionality of the site, including switching to WordPress’s Gutenberg editor at long last (which has, unsurprisingly, involved some glitches and hiccups). Also, the Tumblr mirror has been retired; see the Subscribe and Follow page for other ways to receive new updates.

All Mapped Out

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Book cover: All Mapped OutCultural geographer Mike Duggan’s 2017 Ph.D. thesis was an ethnographic study of digital mapping practices in everyday life. His new book, All Mapped Out (Reaktion, 1 Feb 20241) “is an exploration of how maps impact our lives on social and cultural levels.” He explains a bit about what this means in a recent article in The Conversation.

Maps and what we do with them cannot be defined universally. Ideals and ideas about maps frequently clash with the reality of how and why maps are used. By bringing together my own research studying map users in London, and the work of others who have researched mapping practices around the world, I want to show how uses of maps are shaped by different cultures, communities, contexts and technology. […]

In my work there are several overlapping themes that chart how maps have become tied to culture and society. I want to do more than identify maps that have changed the world, or lay out the history of maps and society. Instead, I want to show that all maps have the potential to change the world and shape society. It’s just a matter of where you look and whose world you are interested in.

Amazon (Canada, UK), Bookshop

Discounted Map Books at the University of Chicago Press

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

The annual University of Chicago Press book sale is frequently hazardous to one’s bank account. This year’s is especially dangerous for map lovers: I count more than 20 cartographic titles with discounts varying between 29 and 76 percent (the PDF catalog shows the discount more clearly), including several I’ve previously reviewed (Picturing America, The Red Atlas, A History of America in 100 Maps, The Writer’s Map, Phantom Islands, Elsewhere). The fact that I already have most of these books—admittedly most as review copies—keeps me relatively safe (which is good: I’m still recovering from last year’s sale).

The Map Books of 2024 page is now live; I managed to get an early start on it this year. There aren’t many books listed so far, because it’s early, and books in this category typically get published in the second half of the year. But you can help me fill in the blanks. If you know about a book coming out some time this year that’s on a map-related subject, please let me know. Ideally, the book is in the publisher’s catalogue and has at least a tentative publication date, but I’ll work with what I can get; I basically just need something to link to.

2023 Holiday Gift Guide

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Here’s the 2023 iteration of my annual gift guide. The idea of which is, if you have a map-obsessed person in your life and would like to give them something map-related—or you are a map-obsessed person and would like your broad hints to have something to link to—this guide may give you some ideas.

This is not a list of recommendations: what’s here is mainly what I’ve spotted online, and there’s probably a lot more out there. In most cases I haven’t even seen what’s listed here, much less reviewed it: these are simply things that look like they might be fit for gift giving. (Anyone who tries to parlay this into “recommended by The Map Room” is going to get a very sad look from me.)

Continue reading “2023 Holiday Gift Guide” →

A New Edition of the Times Comprehensive Atlas

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Product photo for The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, 16th editionThe 16th edition of the granddaddy of world atlases, the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, is out this fall. It was published last month in the U.K. (on 12 October) and will ship in North American next month (on 12 December). It comes five years after the publication of the 15th edition (my review of that edition is something I’m still rather proud of). As with everything else, the price has gone up a bit, edition to edition: £175 in the U.K. (up from £150 for the 15th), $260 in the U.S. (up from $200) and $285 in Canada (up from $275).

Some of the changes since that 15th edition are listed on the publisher’s page, and a lot of them deal with updating place names:

  • New country names for Eswatini (formerly Swaziland)2 and North Macedonia (previously the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia)
  • More than 8000 place name changes with names comprehensively updated in Kazakhstan and Ukraine
  • Addition of Māori names in New Zealand and restored indigenous names in Australia, the most notable being the renaming of Fraser Island in Queensland to its Butchulla name K’gari
  • Administrative boundary updates in Ethiopia, Mali and Kazakhstan
  • Added road, railway and airport infrastructure across the globe including the 4km-long Dardanelles Bridge (Turkey), the Fehmarn Belt road/rail tunnel alignment (Germany/Denmark) and the Sandoy Tunnel (Faroe Islands)

Each round of Times atlases has its own cover design language: from this Comprehensive and next year’s announced Desktop we can see that this round of atlases combines dark relief backgrounds with bright title and spine colours. Neon green is an unexpected choice for the Comprehensive, especially given how restrained the 15th was. I wonder what the bookmark looks like.

Amazon (Canada, UK) | Bookshop

The Lost Subways of North America

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Book cover: The Lost Subways of North AmericaThe Lost Subways of North America, in which Jake Berman looks at the successes and failures of 23 North American transit systems, is out now from the University of Chicago Press. The book’s text is accompanied by a hundred or so of Berman’s own maps, and is based on his series of maps of discontinued and proposed subway systems: see the online index for what made it into the book. On his blog, Berman is posting “deleted scenes”: city chapters that were cut from the book for length, like Denver and Portland.

See the Guardian’s interview with Berman (thanks, Michael); the Strong Towns interview focuses specifically on Los Angeles.

Amazon (Canada, UK) | Bookshop

Astronomy Atlas 1899: A New Kickstarter Project

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Banner image for the Astronomy Atlas 1899 Kickstarter project

Alejandro Polanco’s latest Kickstarter project, Astronomy Atlas 1899, does for 19th-century astronomy atlases what his previous Geography 1880 project did for school atlases of the era: create an anthology of the best maps, drawings and diagrams from the books available to him.

In my library, in addition to the collection of geographical atlases from the 18th to the 21st century, there is a whole series of old books on astronomy, and of all of them, the ones that attract me the most are those published between 1880 and 1930. This was a time when science was developing at an astonishing rate and astronomy was changing radically. […]

In total there are twelve astronomical atlases in this library, mostly Spanish, French and English, published between 1880 and the early 1930s. From these I have selected the most interesting engravings and drawings, arranged them chronologically and given details of the original source. I have also supplemented many of them with other engravings from the Biblioteca Nacional de España and similar sources.

Digital (€18), softcover (€45) and limited-edition hardcover (€90) versions will be produced.

A Book Roundup: Recent New Publications

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Book cover: A History of the World in 500 MapsWriting for Geographical magazine, Katherine Parker reviews A History of the World in 500 Maps by Christian Grataloup (Thames & Hudson, 13 Jul 2023), which was originally published in French in 2019. “[E]ven with 500 maps, there’s a selection process at work that may leave some readers wanting for specific trajectories and topics. For example, although there’s a continual emphasis on economics, commerce and migration, the impact of the Transatlantic slave trade is only lightly addressed. Similarly, Indigenous perspectives are present, but not abundant. However, such critiques of lacuna in subject coverage are inevitable in any book that attempts to include all of human history.” Note that the maps are modern maps of history created for this book, not old maps. UK-only publication. £35. Amazon UK.

Book cover: Esri Map Book Volume 38The 38th volume of the Esri Map Book (Esri, 5 Sep 2023) came out earlier this month. Like the NACIS Atlas of Design (previously),3 it’s a showcase of maps presented at a conference—in this case, maps from the Map Gallery exhibition of Esri’s International User Conference. The Esri Map Book website has a gallery of maps presumably from this volume, and given the number of pages in the book (140) and the number of maps in the gallery (65), it may actually be complete (assuming a two-page spread per map). $30. Amazon (Canada, UK), Bookshop.

Book cover: The GlobemakersPeter Bellerby, of bespoke premium globemaker Bellerby & Co. fame, has written a book: The Globemakers: The Curious Story of an Ancient Craft (Bloomsbury) is out today in hardcover in the UK, and in North America on October 17; the ebook is available worldwide as of today. From the publisher: “The Globemakers brings us inside Bellerby’s gorgeous studio to learn how he and his team of cartographers and artists bring these stunning celestial, terrestrial, and planetary objects to life. Along the way he tells stories of his adventure and the luck along the way that shaped the company.” £25/$30. Amazon (Canada, UK), Bookshop.

The Routledge Handbook of Geospatial Technologies and Society

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Book cover: The Routledge Handbook of Geospatial Technologies and SocietyOut this week: The Routledge Handbook of Geospatial Technologies and Society (Routledge), a collection of essays edited by Alexander J. Kent and Doug Specht. “Contributors reflect on the changing role of geospatial technologies in society and highlight new applications that represent transformative directions in society and point towards new horizons. Furthermore, they encourage dialogue across disciplines to bring new theoretical perspectives on geospatial technologies, from neurology to heritage studies.” Via Matthew Edney, who’s got a chapter in it on pre-1884 geospatial technology. Amazon (Canada, UK), Bookshop.

Kent previously co-edited The Routledge Handbook of Mapping and Cartography (Routledge, 2017) with Peter Vujakovic (previously), and co-authored The Red Atlas (University of Chicago Press, 2017) with John Davies (my review).