On the Map: A Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks

By Simon Garfield

Book Overview

Cartography enthusiasts rejoice: the bestselling author of the Just My Type reveals the fascinating relationship between man and map. Simon Garfield's Just My Type illuminated the world of fonts and made everyone take a stand on Comic Sans and care about kerning. Now Garfield takes on a subject even dearer to our fanatical human hearts: maps. Imagine a world without maps. How would we travel? Could we own land? What would men and women argue about in cars? Scientists have even suggested that mapping--not language--is what elevated our prehistoric ancestors from ape-dom. Follow the history of maps from the early explorers' maps and the awe-inspiring medieval Mappa Mundi to Google Maps and the satellite renderings on our smartphones, Garfield explores the unique way that maps relate and realign our history--and reflect the best and worst of what makes us human. Featuring a foreword by Dava Sobel and packed with fascinating tales of cartographic intrigue, outsize personalities, and amusing "pocket maps" on an array of subjects from how to fold a map to the strangest maps on the Internet, On the Map is a rich historical tapestry infused with Garfield's signature narrative flair. Map-obsessives and everyone who loved Just My Type will be lining up to join Garfield on his audacious journey through time and around the globe.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1592407803
• ISBN13: 9781592407804
• Release Date: November 2013
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Length: 466 Pages
• Weight: 1.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.4" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

The Piri Reis Map of 1513 is conspicuously missing.

I know everything. O.K. I thought I did about maps. But just like someone having to tell you that your shoe is untied, this presentation tells the obvious fact that maps hold a key to what makes us human; how did I overlook that? The hardcover comes packed with plenty of monochrome maps and pictures of individuals related to maps. The forward by Dava Sobel set the tone for what is to come. This book, in describing maps, takes us through all kinds of history but does not have the time to slow down, so the author Simon Garfield is counting on us already having general knowledge about “42 life the universe and everything”, or at least knowledge of people and history, so he can show how maps pull it all together. I feel that I just had an educational survey. There is a small section of California as an island. I wonder if it was a misconception or a prediction. In any case, the Dutch map from 1650 is a nice addition to the book. Missing maps may be a sequel: Piri Reis Map of 1513, “a world map.” The Piri Reis Map of 1513 by Gregory C. McIntosh (Book) California’s Avocado Jungle Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989) Movie Map of Middle-earth The Maps of Tolkien's Middle-earth by Brian Sibley (Book) Topographic Maps How to Teach with Topographic Maps by Dana Van Burgh (Book) ---- Makes you want to get out your National Geographic Maps. You will never look at maps in the same old way.