Seeing Through Maps: The Power of Images to Shape Our World View

by Denis Wood and Ward Kaiser

This NEW book explains the principles behind the Peters Projection and a dozen other unique maps and provocative images. Its got over 70 illustrations: Van Sant, Fuller Dymaxion, a Toronto-centered... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1931057001
• ISBN13: 9781931057004
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: O D T Inc
• Length: 152 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 11.0" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A young adult's primer in epistemic anarchy, with maps

I still remember the first time I saw the McArthur's Universal Corrective Map of the World, the "upside-down" map with Australia at its center. It was 15 or so years ago, in a down-under exhibit at Brookfield Zoo. The experience of seeing "north" and "south" disconnected from their habitual, yet arbitrary, association with "up" and "down" was at once discomfitting and exhilating. I saw THROUGH the map, and grokked one assumption upon which standard Mercator projection was based. A textbook of sorts, this was apparently written for bright junior high and high school students. The book's ambivalent title, Seeing Through Maps, is apt because the book is about both seeing through (i.e., USING) maps and seeing THROUGH the map itself to the assumptions that frame it. "Understanding that every map is a projection that gives up some aspect of global reality in order to present what it shows---and that is otherwise endlessly selective---should free you to see through the connotations to the denotative maps that support them. And so in turn be able to scrutinize the connotations. Understanding that every map has a point of view and serves a purpose should free you to take the point of view that serves your interest." (p. 79) Yet for all this talk about maps, the book is not a study in the practice of cartography. Rather, it is an exploration of the practice of representation in general, an exploration which can evoke profound cognitive dissonance. Consequently, the book also exhorts the reader to adapt a sense of "model agnosticism" when it comes to using maps/metaphors/representations, because no single perspective or position can be total or comprehensive, by definition. The authors repeatedly expound on this main theme of the book: "Each view excludes another. Because each view has its own value, each may be required to serve one purpose or another. But the more points of view that are taken into account, the more comprehensive is the understanding." (p. 22) "What is wrong with _moving_ from one view to another? First you catch this view. Then you get that. You stand in between for a while. Then you move to an entirely new position. In fact, this is our recommendation. We believe that the best understanding comes from being able to view the world from as many perspectives as possible. We want you to give up the idea that one map, or even one projection, can meet our needs for understanding." (p. 26) "'[U]pside-down' maps shock viewers into questioning their assumptions about maps in particular and about life in general....Sometimes all we need to do to solve our problems is turn them upside down." (p. 56) "But we do not have to have just one picture. We can have, we _do_ have, many. There is no reason for maps all to be on the same projection. The ceaseless repetition of a single projection tries to convince people that 'this' is what the earth looks like. But the earth does not look the way any individual projection makes it look." (p. 67) "T

Map Apreciation

This book will really help you to appreciate maps and their use through out history. Easily understood and very well written. This is must read for anyone who is even slightly interesred in maps.

Highly recommended for libraries

As librarians in Bergen County, N.J., we highly recommend "Seeing Through Maps" for all library collections. This a wonderfully illustrated, interestingly written book. It is especially good for the young adult collection as it is accurate, clear and attractively laid out. Young adults coming into the library find it easily understood and packed full of information. This book would be very helpful in both public and school libraries.

Seeing Through Maps

I highly recommend this title, whether you are or are not a map enthusiast. The book is easy to follow for anyone with at least a junior high school education, and informative, even if you are a college graduate. It will give you a new appreciation of maps and their important role in our history and our world today. This is the type of book that will make you a "map geek" even if you never really thought that much about the subject before you picked up the book.