The Map Book

by Nicholas Crane

"Simply organized as a progression through time, The Map Book collects some 175 maps that span four millennia - from the famed prehistoric Bedolina (Italy) incision in rock from around 1500 B.C. to the most modern, digitally enhanced rendering. Many of the maps are beautiful works of art in their own right. From Europe to the Americas, Africa to Asia, north to south, there are maps of oceans and continents charted by heroic adventurers sailing into the unknown, as accounts spread of new discoveries, shadowy continents begin to appear on the margins of the world, often labeled 'unknown lands.' Other maps had a more practical some demarcated national boundaries or individual plots of land; military plans depicted enemy positions; propaganda treatises showed one country or faction at an advantage over others." So much history resides in each map - cultural, mythological, navigational - expressing the unlimited extent of human imagination. This is captured in the accompanying texts - mini essays by leading map historians - that are as vivid and insightful as the maps themselves.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Maps, Cartography, Geography, Reference, Travel

360 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Distilled from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas... accessed 07-Aug-2012:

Nicholas Crane (born 6 May 1954) is an English geographer, explorer, writer and broadcaster was born in Hastings, East Sussex, but grew up in Norfolk. He attended Wymondham College from 1967 until 1972, then Cambridgeshire College of Arts & Technology (CCAT), a forerunner to Anglia Ruskin University, where he studied Geography.

In his youth he went camping and hiking with his father and explored Norfolk by bicycle which gave him his enthusiasm for exploration. In 1986 he located the pole of inaccessibility for the Eurasia landmass travelling with his cousin Richard; their journey being the subject of the book “Journey to the Centre of the Earth.”

He married Annabel Huxley in 1991. They live in Chalk Farm in north-west London and have three children.

In 1992/3 he embarked on an 18-month solo journey, walking 10,000 kilometres from Cape Finisterre to Istanbul. He recounted that expedition in his book “Clear Waters Rising: A Mountain Walk Across Europe” which won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award in 1997. He made a television self-documentary of the journey in “High Trails to Istanbul” (1994).

Together with Richard Crane he was awarded the 1992 Mungo Park Medal by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society for his journeys in Tibet, China, Afghanistan and Africa.

His 2000 book “Two Degrees West” described his walk across Great Britain in which he followed the eponymous meridian as closely as possible. More recently he published a biography of Gerard Mercator, the great Flemish cartographer.

In November 2007 he debated the future of the English countryside with Richard Girling, Sue Clifford, Richard Mabey and Bill Bryson as part of CPRE's annual Volunteers Conference

Since 2004 he has written and presented four notable television series for BBC Two: Coast, Great British Journeys, Map Man and Town.

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Will return to this later

[JoAnn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really looked forward to getting this book and wish I had read the reviews first. While I can enjoy the overall design of the maps, I certainly found my enjoyment lessened by the fact that I cannot read the print on most of them, even with a magnifying glass. This, in turn, lessened the appeal of the text. Just a mess, to be honest.

Didn't any editor notice the size of the print on the maps? Or are they sight-impaired?

I am just glad that I only paid $8 for this, used, including shipping.

[Fred Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really a coffee table book. It's well done, and has many, many kinds of maps, to represent various times, places and purposes. It's well done and researched, but it's only a page on each map, so it's just enough to make one point. The maps are beautiful but, even with a large format book, hard to see details. But a great book for browsing, and more interesting than many coffee table books.

[Keeko · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read it from cover to cover, a map or two a day to soak them in. What a beautiful, interesting, and diverse book. It's more than a collection of maps (not that there's anything wrong with that). It's also about the people who made the maps and what the maps show of their lives. It's one of those books you never finish because you know it will be nice to read it again and again.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really lovely look at some wonderful cartography. However, some of the maps are pretty small, and we can't read all of the details, but it doesn't make the book any less of a joy to flip through. I picked it up and the library (quite randomly actually) and wouldn't mind buying a copy :)

[Jesus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amidst a beautiful collection of historical maps, it reveals that the fiction of "flat world" was primarily perpetuated by Washington Irving.

[Rose]

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