Seeing Through Maps: Many Ways to See the World

This book challenges the popular world-view by questioning a number of map images and the specific messages they communicate. Maps imply a truth, but that truth can be quite skewed depending on the viewpoint of the map creator. This book takes a hard look at truth by carefully inspecting some familiar, and not-so-familiar, map images and exploring their significance. The normally staid world of geographers is unusually excited by this dramatic new approach to the meaning of images. Seeing Through Maps, however, extends beyond cartography. The book discusses how map projections provide information about countries, cultures, the world's peoples and their history. It also explains the principles and hidden messages contained in a number of unique maps and provocative images: Peters' Equal Area Projection, Van Sant's GeoSphere Map; Fuller's Dymaxion Map; a Toronto-centered world map; Minard's map of Napoleon's march on Moscow; Petit's map of African slave trading routes; a global warming map; and some intriguing, mind-stretching maps with south on top. "This [book] will encourage a spirited discussion of perceptions, world views, and the importance of...seeing things differently," says Government Training News. Ivor Miller (African Diaspora Studies, DePaul University) says it is "a beautiful study that prepares students to think using multiple perspectives." The book is suitable for social studies, global studies, and psychology courses in universities. THIS REVISED edition includes a cartogram of 2004 USA Election Results, Hobo-Dyer Projection maps, selected Chronology of Map Development, a new chapter(8)called, "Are Maps TALK instead of Pictures" which challenges the conventional notion that maps are representations of reality. Instead, the authors assert that maps are propositions or arguments, and used as tools of persuasion or exploitation.