Open Journal Systems | Cartographic Perspectives

Book Reviewers

To request to review a book, please send an email to Reviews Editor Mark Denil (cp_book_reviews@hotmail.com). This email should include the title of the book you want to review, your affiliation and title, as well as a brief statement concerning your research interests and appropriateness as a reviewer for the book.

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Publishers

If you are interested in providing a review copy to Cartographic Perspectives, please contact Reviews Editor Mark Denil (cp_book_reviews@hotmail.com). Please contact him to get a mailing address for the book.

	Islamic Maps By Yossef Rapoport 2019 \| Bodleian Library, distributed by University of Chicago Press Copy Available: Yes Spanning the Islamic world, from ninth-century Baghdad to nineteenth-century Iran, this book tells the story of Islamic cartography and the key Muslim map-makers who shaped the art over the centuries. Muslim geographers like al-Khwarazmi and al-Idrisi developed distinctive styles, often based on geometrical patterns and calligraphy, and their maps covered all the known world, from the sources of the Nile to the European lands of the north and the Wall of Gog and Magog in the east. These map-makers combined novel cartographical techniques with art, science, and geographical knowledge to produce maps that could be both aesthetically stunning and mathematically sophisticated. Islamic Maps examines Islamic visual interpretations of the world in their historical context through the map-makers themselves. What was the purpose of their maps, what choices did they make, and what arguments about the world were they trying to convey? Lavishly illustrated with stunning manuscripts, beautiful instruments, and Qibla charts, this book shows how maps constructed by Muslim map-makers capture the many dimensions of Islamic civilization across the centuries.
	The Selden Map of China: A New Understanding of the Ming Dynasty By Hongping Annie Nie 2019 \| Bodleian Library, distributed by University of Chicago Press Copy Available: Yes Exploring the commercial aims of the Ming Dynasty, the port city of Quanzhou and its connections with the voyages of the early traveler Zheng He, this book describes the historical background of the era in which the map was used. It also includes an analysis of the skills and techniques involved in Chinese map-making and the significance of the compass bearings, scale, and ratios found on the map, all of which combine to represent a breakthrough in cartographic techniques. The enthralling story revealed by this extraordinary artifact sheds light on the long history of China’s relationship with the sea and with the wider world.
	Fifty Maps and the Stories They Tell By Jerry Brotton and Nick Millea 2019 \| Bodleian Library, distributed by University of Chicago Press Copy Available: Yes The Bodleian Library’s map collection is a treasure trove of cartographic delights spanning more than a thousand years. This book features highlights from the collection together with rare artifacts and some stunning examples from twenty-first-century map-makers. Lavishly illustrated throughout, the book showcases a rich array: from military maps, digital cartograms, decorative portolan charts, and maps of heaven and hell; to a Siberian sealskin map and a twelfth-century Arabic map of the Mediterranean; to J. R. R. Tolkien’s cosmology of Middle-earth, C. S. Lewis’s map of Narnia, and a tapestry map by contemporary artist Grayson Perry. Each map is accompanied by a narrative revealing the story behind its creation and the significance of its design. The chronological arrangement highlights how the science and practice of cartography has changed over time and how this evolution reflects political and social transformations from century to century.
	Smarter Government: How to Govern for Results in the Information Age By Martin O'Malley 2019 \| Esri Press Copy Available: Yes Smarter Government: How to Govern for Results in the Information Age is about a more effective way to lead that is emerging, enabled by the Information Age. It provides real solutions to real problems using GIS technology and helps develop a management strategy using data that will profoundly change an organization.
	Black Lives 1900: W.E.B. Du Bois at the Paris Exposition Edited by Julian Rothenstein 2019 \| Redstone Press Copy Available: Yes This new book, from Redstone Press in London, takes a synoptic look at the whole of Du Bois' "American Negro Exhibit" at the Paris Exposition of 1900. It presents every information visualization graphic and every contextual-izing photo from the display, and is supported by essays and quotations that provide a diachronic look at the exhibit's impact and meaning both in 1900 Paris and the USA of today. Although we all have recently read with interest, in CP 93, Brandyn Friedly's review of W.E.B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America, from Princeton Architectural Press—which dealt exclusively with the data visualizations—this new book potentially provides a significantly different look at, and treatment of, the same basic material.
	A Critical Companion to English Mappae Mundi of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries Edited by Dan Terkla and Nick Millea 2019 \| Boydell Press Copy Available: Yes This volume provides a comprehensive Companion to the seven most significant English mappae mundi. It begins with a survey of the maps' materials, types, shapes, sources, contents, conventions, idiosyncrasies, commissioners and users, moving on to locate the maps' creation and use in the realms of medieval rhetoric, Victorine memory theory and clerical pedagogy. A chapter is then devoted to each individual map.
	Mapping the Great Game: Explorers, Spies and Maps in 19th-century Asia By Riaz Dean 2019 \| Casemate Copy Available: Yes The fascinating story of the pioneers who explored vast regions of Central Asia, India and Tibet to create maps, and spy out the country for military and geographical reasons.
	A People's Atlas of Detroit Edited by Linda Campbell, Andrew Newman, Sara Safransky, and Tim Stallmann 2020 \| Wayne State University Press Copy Available: Yes A People’s Atlas of Detroit narrates the lived experiences of people engaged in political battles central to Detroit's future and that of urban America. This interdisciplinary volume features contributions by over fifty figures from movement-building efforts in Detroit, including activists, farmers, students, educators, scholars, not-for-profit and city government workers, and members of neighborhood block clubs. 10 x 8 inches, 352 pages, 52 photos, 52 maps, 6 charts.
	Why North Is Up: Map Conventions and Where They Came From By Mick Ashworth 2019 \| Bodleian Library Copy Available: Yes This book tells the story of how widely accepted mapping conventions originated and evolved—from map orientation, projections, typography, and scale, to the use of color, symbols, ways of representing relief, and the treatment of boundaries and place names. It charts the fascinating story of how conventions have changed in response to new technologies and ever-changing mapping requirements, how symbols can be a matter of life or death, why universal acceptance of conventions can be difficult to achieve, and how new mapping conventions are developing to meet the needs of modern cartography. Why North is Up offers an accessible and enlightening guide to the sometimes hidden techniques of map-making through the centuries.
	Talking Maps By Jerry Brotton and Nick Millea 2019 \| Bodleian Library Copy Available: Yes By telling the stories behind the artifacts and those generated by them, Talking Maps reveals how each map is not just a tool for navigation but also a worldly proposal that helps us to understand who we are by describing where we are.

	Islamic Maps By Yossef Rapoport 2019 \| Bodleian Library, distributed by University of Chicago Press Copy Available: Yes Spanning the Islamic world, from ninth-century Baghdad to nineteenth-century Iran, this book tells the story of Islamic cartography and the key Muslim map-makers who shaped the art over the centuries. Muslim geographers like al-Khwarazmi and al-Idrisi developed distinctive styles, often based on geometrical patterns and calligraphy, and their maps covered all the known world, from the sources of the Nile to the European lands of the north and the Wall of Gog and Magog in the east. These map-makers combined novel cartographical techniques with art, science, and geographical knowledge to produce maps that could be both aesthetically stunning and mathematically sophisticated. Islamic Maps examines Islamic visual interpretations of the world in their historical context through the map-makers themselves. What was the purpose of their maps, what choices did they make, and what arguments about the world were they trying to convey? Lavishly illustrated with stunning manuscripts, beautiful instruments, and Qibla charts, this book shows how maps constructed by Muslim map-makers capture the many dimensions of Islamic civilization across the centuries.
	The Selden Map of China: A New Understanding of the Ming Dynasty By Hongping Annie Nie 2019 \| Bodleian Library, distributed by University of Chicago Press Copy Available: Yes Exploring the commercial aims of the Ming Dynasty, the port city of Quanzhou and its connections with the voyages of the early traveler Zheng He, this book describes the historical background of the era in which the map was used. It also includes an analysis of the skills and techniques involved in Chinese map-making and the significance of the compass bearings, scale, and ratios found on the map, all of which combine to represent a breakthrough in cartographic techniques. The enthralling story revealed by this extraordinary artifact sheds light on the long history of China’s relationship with the sea and with the wider world.
	Fifty Maps and the Stories They Tell By Jerry Brotton and Nick Millea 2019 \| Bodleian Library, distributed by University of Chicago Press Copy Available: Yes The Bodleian Library’s map collection is a treasure trove of cartographic delights spanning more than a thousand years. This book features highlights from the collection together with rare artifacts and some stunning examples from twenty-first-century map-makers. Lavishly illustrated throughout, the book showcases a rich array: from military maps, digital cartograms, decorative portolan charts, and maps of heaven and hell; to a Siberian sealskin map and a twelfth-century Arabic map of the Mediterranean; to J. R. R. Tolkien’s cosmology of Middle-earth, C. S. Lewis’s map of Narnia, and a tapestry map by contemporary artist Grayson Perry. Each map is accompanied by a narrative revealing the story behind its creation and the significance of its design. The chronological arrangement highlights how the science and practice of cartography has changed over time and how this evolution reflects political and social transformations from century to century.
	Smarter Government: How to Govern for Results in the Information Age By Martin O'Malley 2019 \| Esri Press Copy Available: Yes Smarter Government: How to Govern for Results in the Information Age is about a more effective way to lead that is emerging, enabled by the Information Age. It provides real solutions to real problems using GIS technology and helps develop a management strategy using data that will profoundly change an organization.
	Black Lives 1900: W.E.B. Du Bois at the Paris Exposition Edited by Julian Rothenstein 2019 \| Redstone Press Copy Available: Yes This new book, from Redstone Press in London, takes a synoptic look at the whole of Du Bois' "American Negro Exhibit" at the Paris Exposition of 1900. It presents every information visualization graphic and every contextual-izing photo from the display, and is supported by essays and quotations that provide a diachronic look at the exhibit's impact and meaning both in 1900 Paris and the USA of today. Although we all have recently read with interest, in CP 93, Brandyn Friedly's review of W.E.B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America, from Princeton Architectural Press—which dealt exclusively with the data visualizations—this new book potentially provides a significantly different look at, and treatment of, the same basic material.
	A Critical Companion to English Mappae Mundi of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries Edited by Dan Terkla and Nick Millea 2019 \| Boydell Press Copy Available: Yes This volume provides a comprehensive Companion to the seven most significant English mappae mundi. It begins with a survey of the maps' materials, types, shapes, sources, contents, conventions, idiosyncrasies, commissioners and users, moving on to locate the maps' creation and use in the realms of medieval rhetoric, Victorine memory theory and clerical pedagogy. A chapter is then devoted to each individual map.
	Mapping the Great Game: Explorers, Spies and Maps in 19th-century Asia By Riaz Dean 2019 \| Casemate Copy Available: Yes The fascinating story of the pioneers who explored vast regions of Central Asia, India and Tibet to create maps, and spy out the country for military and geographical reasons.
	A People's Atlas of Detroit Edited by Linda Campbell, Andrew Newman, Sara Safransky, and Tim Stallmann 2020 \| Wayne State University Press Copy Available: Yes A People’s Atlas of Detroit narrates the lived experiences of people engaged in political battles central to Detroit's future and that of urban America. This interdisciplinary volume features contributions by over fifty figures from movement-building efforts in Detroit, including activists, farmers, students, educators, scholars, not-for-profit and city government workers, and members of neighborhood block clubs. 10 x 8 inches, 352 pages, 52 photos, 52 maps, 6 charts.
	Why North Is Up: Map Conventions and Where They Came From By Mick Ashworth 2019 \| Bodleian Library Copy Available: Yes This book tells the story of how widely accepted mapping conventions originated and evolved—from map orientation, projections, typography, and scale, to the use of color, symbols, ways of representing relief, and the treatment of boundaries and place names. It charts the fascinating story of how conventions have changed in response to new technologies and ever-changing mapping requirements, how symbols can be a matter of life or death, why universal acceptance of conventions can be difficult to achieve, and how new mapping conventions are developing to meet the needs of modern cartography. Why North is Up offers an accessible and enlightening guide to the sometimes hidden techniques of map-making through the centuries.
	Talking Maps By Jerry Brotton and Nick Millea 2019 \| Bodleian Library Copy Available: Yes By telling the stories behind the artifacts and those generated by them, Talking Maps reveals how each map is not just a tool for navigation but also a worldly proposal that helps us to understand who we are by describing where we are.

Islamic Maps

The Selden Map of China: A New Understanding of the Ming Dynasty

Fifty Maps and the Stories They Tell

Smarter Government: How to Govern for Results in the Information Age

Black Lives 1900: W.E.B. Du Bois at the Paris Exposition

A Critical Companion to English Mappae Mundi of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

Mapping the Great Game: Explorers, Spies and Maps in 19th-century Asia

A People's Atlas of Detroit

Why North Is Up: Map Conventions and Where They Came From

Talking Maps