Cartography: A Reading List

Sometimes there’s a collection of books at the library that we feel just needs to be noticed. Our books on cartography and maps.fall into that catagory. Its a large collection of books that are scattered around the library. We’ve got everything from Atlases of Civil War Battles to fantasy fiction centered around map making. Here are some of the highlights and if you get a chance come in and check out our Readers Advisory display on the same subject.

Books About Maps & Map Makers


    • Bagrow, Leo History Of Cartography
      This illustrated work is intended to acquaint readers with the early maps produced in both Europe and the rest of the world, and to tell us something of their development, their makers and printers, their varieties and characteristics. The authors’ chief concern is with the appearance of maps: they exclude any examination of their content, or of scientific methods of mapmaking. This book ends in the second half of the eighteenth century, when craftsmanship was superseded by specialized science and the machine. As a history of the evolution of the early map, it is a stunning work of art and science.

    • Brook, Timothy Mr Seldens Map Of China : Decoding The Secrets Of A Vanished Cartographer
      “Timothy Brook’s award-winning Vermeer’s Hat unfolded the early history of globalization, using Vermeer’s paintings to show how objects like beaver hats and porcelain bowls began to circulate around the world. Now he plumbs the mystery of a single artifact that offers new insights into global connections centuries old. In 2009, an extraordinary map of China was discovered in Oxford’s Bodleian Library–where it had first been deposited 350 years before, then stowed and forgotten for nearly a century. Neither historians of China nor cartography experts had ever seen anything like it. It was so odd that experts would have declared it a fake–yet records confirmed it had been delivered to Oxford in 1659. The “Selden Map,” as it is known, was a puzzle that needing solving. Brook, a historian of China, set out to explore the riddle. His investigation will lead readers around this elegant, enigmatic work of art, and from the heart of China, via the Southern Ocean, to the court of King James II. In the story of Selden’s map, he reveals for us the surprising links between an English scholar and merchants half a world away, and offers novel insights into the power and meaning that a single map can hold. Brook delivers the same anecdote-rich narrative, intriguing characters, and unexpected historical connections that made Vermeer’s Hat an instant classic”–

    • Brotton, Jerry A History Of The World In Twelve Maps
      Argues that, far from being purely objective documents, maps are profoundly subjective expressions of the people who crate them and are intimately tied to the views and agendas of particular times and places.


    • Harmon, Katharine A You Are Here Nyc : Mapping The Soul Of The City
      Maps are magical. Every graphic, like every story, has a point of view, and New York is rife with mapmaking possibilities, thick with mythology, and glutted with history. You Are Here: NYC assembles some two hundred maps charting every inch and facet of the five boroughs, depicting New Yorks of past and present, and a city that never was.

    • Harvey, Miles The Island Of Lost Maps : True Story Of Cartographic Crime
      The Island of Lost Maps tells the story of a curious crime spree: the theft of scores of valuable centuries-old maps from some of the most prominent research libraries in the United States and Canada. The perpetrator was Gilbert Joseph Bland, Jr., an enigmatic antiques dealer from South Florida, whose cross-country slash-and-dash operation had gone virtually undetected until he was caught in 1995 and was unmasked as the most prolific American map thief in history. As Miles Harvey unravels the mystery of Bland’s life, he maps out the world of cartography and cartographic crime, weaving together a fascinating story of exploration, craftsmanship, villainy, and the lure of the unknown.

    • Jennings, Ken Maphead : Charting The Wide Weird World Of Geography Wonks
      This book traces the history of mapmaking while offering insight into the role of cartography in human civilization and sharing anecdotes about the cultural arenas frequented by map enthusiasts. It comes as no surprise that, as a kid, Jeopardy! legend Ken Jennings slept with a bulky Hammond world atlas by his pillow every night. It recounts his lifelong love affair with geography and explores why maps have always been so fascinating to him and to fellow enthusiasts everywhere. He takes readers on a world tour of geogeeks, from the London Map Fair to the computer programmers at Google Earth. Each chapter delves into a different aspect of map culture: highpointing, geocaching, road atlas rallying, even the “unreal estate” charted on the maps of fiction and fantasy. He also considers the ways in which cartography has shaped our history, suggesting that the impulse to make and read maps is as relevant today as it has ever been.

    • Johnson, Sylvia A Mapping The World
      A history of mapmaking showing how maps both reflect and change people’s view of the world.







    • Wilford, John Noble The Mapmakers
      The author traces the history of map making from ancient times to the space age


    • How To Read A Map
      Describes how to use and understand maps and apply them in the study of geography, cartography, and social studies.

    • Mapping Earth
      Explores the world of maps, from the earliest maps used by astronomers to the astronauts who are mapping the earth from space.

Maps in Fiction


    • Bomback, Mark Mapmaker
      Teenagers Tanya and Connor stumble on a deadly secret while working at the digital mapmaking company where Tanya’s dead father once worked.

    • Clements, Andrew The Map Trap
      Sixth-grader Alton Barnes loves maps, and when his portfolio of secret maps is stolen, he begins getting notes with orders that he must obey to get the maps back but, with the help of a popular classmate, he just might succeed before his teacher, principal, or someone else learns he has been studying and mapping things about them.

    • Durango, Julia Sea Of The Dead
      When thirteen-year-old Kehl, fifth son of the Warrior Prince Amatec, is kidnapped by the Fallen King and forced to map the entire Carillon Empire, he also discovers a secret about his own past.

    • In a world transformed by 1799’s Great Disruption–when all of the continents were flung into different time periods, Sophia Tims journeys home to Boston, anticipating her reunion with Theo, but he has been conscripted to fight in the Western War, Prime Minister Broadgirldle’s twisted vision of Manifest Destiny.

    • Grove, S E The Glass Sentence
      In 1891, in a world transformed by 1799’s Great Disruption–when all of the continents were flung into different time periods–thirteen-year-old Sophia Tims and her friend Theo go in search of Sophia’s uncle, Shadrack Elli, Boston’s foremost cartologer, who has been kidnapped.

    • Grove, S E The Golden Specific
      Thirteen-year-old Sophia Tims, with her friend Theo, continues to search for her parents, explorers who have vanished as the borders shift within a world transformed by the Great Disruption of 1799.

    • Larsen, Reif The Selected Works Of T S Spivet
      When twelve-year-old genius cartographer T.S. Spivet receives an unexpected phone call from the Smithsonian announcing he has won the prestigious Baird Award, life as normal-if you consider mapping family dinner table conversation normal-is interrupted and a wild cross-country adventure begins, taking T.S. from his family ranch just north of Divide, Montana, to the museum’s hallowed halls.

Atlases


    • Foer, Joshua Atlas Obscura : An Explorers Guide To The Worlds Hidden Wonders
      “Wonder meets wanderlust in an extraordinary new travel book. Created by the founders of AtlasObscura.com, the vibrant online destination and community with over 3 million visitors a month, Atlas Obscura is the bucket-list guide to over 700 of the most unusual, curious, bizarre, and mysterious places on earth” —

    • The Amazon River flows more than 4,000 miles through the world’s greatest rainforest, into the Amazon delta, and finally into the Atlantic Ocean. This extraordinary atlas is the first comprehensive view of not only the Amazon River but also its thirteen major tributaries. More than 150 color maps and nearly 300 vivid photographs provide spectacular views of the river and rainforest. Along the way, the authors explore many intriguing topics such as why some of the Amazon’s tributaries have black water, what happens when the freshwater of the Amazon reaches the salty ocean, and why we all should be concerned about the deforestation that contributes to the loss of species biodiversity.

    • Solnit, Rebecca Infinite City : A San Francisco Atlas
      “[Atlas] of principal landmarks and treasures of the region, including butterly species, queer sites, murders, coffee, water, power, contingent identities, social types, libraries, early morning bars, the lost labor landscape of 1960, and the monumental Monterey cypresses of San Francisco; of indigenous place names, women environmentalists, toxins, food sites, right wing organizations, World War II shipyards, Zen Buddhist centers, salmon migration, and musical histories of the Bay Area; with details of cultural geogrpahies of the Mission District, the Fillmore’s culture wars and metamorphoses, the racial discourses of the United Nations Plaza, the south of Market world that redevelpment devoured, and other significant phenomena, vanished and extant.”

    • Symonds, Craig L A Battlefield Atlas Of The Civil War
      From Fort Sumter to Appomattox, A Battlefield Atlas of the Civil War offers a clear and concise overview of the Civil War. Ideal for battlefield tours, the 43 two-color, full page maps highlight the critical military positions and communicate the changing nature of the war. The description accompanying each map enables the reader to relive the action of battle and sense the drama it held for the troops that fought in the world’s first total war.


    • Map : Exploring The World
      300 stunning maps from all periods and from all around the world, exploring and revealing what maps tell us about history and ourselves. Selected by an international panel of cartographers, academics, map dealers and collectors, the maps represent over 5,000 years of cartographic innovation drawing on a range of cultures and traditions. Comprehensive in scope, this book features all types of map from navigation and surveys to astronomical maps, satellite and digital maps, as well as works of art inspired by cartography. Unique curated sequence presents maps in thought-provoking juxtapositions for lively, stimulating reading. Features some of the most influential mapmakers and institutions in history, including Gerardus Mercator, Abraham Ortelius, Phyllis Pearson, Heinrich Berann, Bill Rankin, Ordnance Survey and Google Earth. Easy-to-use format, with large reproductions, authoritative texts and key caption information, it is the perfect introduction to the subject. Also features a comprehensive illustrated timeline of the history of cartography, biographies of leading cartographers and a glossary of cartographic terms.


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