A History of the World in Twelve Maps Author: Jerry Brotton | Language: English | ISBN:
B008RYSM1K | Format: PDF
A History of the World in Twelve Maps Description
Jerry Brotton is the presenter of the acclaimed BBC4 series 'Maps: Power, Plunder and Possession'. Here he tells the story of our world through maps.
Throughout history, maps have been fundamental in shaping our view of the world, and our place in it. But far from being purely scientific objects, world maps are unavoidably ideological and subjective, intimately bound up with the systems of power and authority of particular times and places. Mapmakers do not simply represent the world, they construct it out of the ideas of their age.
In this scintillating book, Jerry Brotton examines the significance of 12 maps - from the mystical representations of ancient history to the satellite-derived imagery of today. He vividly recreates the environments and circumstances in which each of the maps was made, showing how each conveys a highly individual view of the world - whether the Jerusalem-centred Christian perspective of the 14th century Hereford Mappa Mundi or the Peters projection of the 1970s which aimed to give due weight to 'the third world'.
Although the way we map our surroundings is once more changing dramatically, Brotton argues that maps today are no more definitive or objective than they have ever been - but that they continue to make arguments and propositions about the world, and to recreate, shape and mediate our view of it. Readers of this book will never look at a map in quite the same way again.
- File Size: 47065 KB
- Print Length: 492 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0670023396
- Publisher: Penguin (September 6, 2012)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B008RYSM1K
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #129,299 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Education & Reference > Atlases & Maps > Atlases - #9
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Science > Earth Sciences > Geography - #42
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > Historical Study > Reference
- #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Education & Reference > Atlases & Maps > Atlases - #9
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Science > Earth Sciences > Geography - #42
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > Historical Study > Reference
First paragraph ... I winced at the author's overwrought narrative style ... too many adjectives, adverbs and thesaurus derivatives ... too little Strunk & White editing. I'm perfectly comfortable reading overly complicated narrative but it waste time wading through it ... I can't help being irritated by the style and so risk missing the substance.
If you can get past the overwrought writing style, you might think that the cartographer author would have taken a lesson from his own history and replaced words with sketches and notes. Every map discussed would be improved by the authors own sketch rather than 1000 words. One would expect a map book to be well illustrated but this one is not. The 5' long Hereford Mappa Mundi for example is deconstructed in narrative fashion. If the author had photographed his chosen maps ... imaged them with the best camera available... and then described them with side by side sketches, translations and notes, the book would be 100% better.
Cartography is a reading hobby for me and there are better books. The 12 maps the author chose are interesting, but by comparison, the author makes much ado ... way to much ado, over these.
I paid $26 for the book expecting quality maps illustrations and drawings as Kindle doesn't do maps well. As there are so few maps in this hardback, and the few maps that are here are dark, illegible, and downright terrible ... if you think that you must read the book, save the hardcopy money, buy the Kindle and use wiki to bring in the higher fidelity original images this author should have included in his book.
p.s. I write reviews to help consumers cut through the publishers representations and call the book as I see it.
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