Maps And Mapping The World

"This book highlights more than a hundred maps from every era and every part of the world. Organized chronologically, they display an astonishing variety of cartographic styles and techniques. They range from priceless artistic masterworks like the 1507 Waldseemuller world map, the first to use the name "America, " to such practical artifacts as a Polynesian stick chart, a creation of bent twigs, seashells, and coconut palms that was nevertheless capable of guiding an outrigger canoe safely across thousands of miles of trackless and seemingly endless ocean. Some, like the portolans, or sea charts, of the Age of Discovery, were closely guarded state secrets that shaped the rise and fall of empires; others circulated widely and showed such fabled routes as the Silk Road across western Asia and the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails that opened up the American West."--Jacket.

A history of mapmaking showing how maps both reflect and change people's view of the world.

A eight volume reference set that provides a history of map making, describes the different types of maps, their purpose and the techniques used to make them, plus the meaning of some of the symbols and how to use them to read maps.

Map making and, ultimately, map thinking is ubiquitous across literature, cosmology, mathematics, psychology, and genetics. We partition, summarize, organize, and clarify our world via spatialized representations. Our maps and, more generally, our representations seduce and persuade; they build and destroy. They are the ultimate record of empires and of our evolving comprehension of our world. This book is about the promises and perils of map thinking. Maps are purpose-driven abstractions, discarding detail to highlight only particular features of a territory. By preserving certain features at the expense of others, they can be used to reinforce a privileged position. When Maps Become the World shows us how the scientific theories, models, and concepts we use to intervene in the world function as maps, and explores the consequences of this, both good and bad. We increasingly understand the world around us in terms of models, to the extent that we often take the models for reality. Winther explains how in time, our historical representations in science, in cartography, and in our stories about ourselves replace individual memories and become dominant social narratives—they become reality, and they can remake the world.

After learning about maps in school, Lisa maps all the favorite places of her dog Penny.

Where in the world are you? Learn to read, understand and create maps. Maps are pictures of places. They can be printed on paper or shown on a screen. A map shows you how to get around in a place that is unfamiliar. A map can even tell you new things about a place you know. What is a map, anyway? How do they work? Maps and Mapping for Canadian Kids will walk kids through elements of a map. By discussing concepts such as scale, symbols, and colour, they'll see how maps work and how to read them. Basic principles of navigation explain how early explorers and navigators were able to chart the world, and Canada in particular. A special section on David Thompson highlights the achievements of this great Canadian cartographer.

From the crude maps of ancient Babylon to the satellite-fueled precision of Google Maps, cartography has been both a record of dreams and of discoveries. Maps have played midwife to empires, helped win wars, and encouraged humanity to venture beyond boundaries of space and time. Containing numerous maps from the archives of the Royal Geographical Society, Mapping the World tells the story of the philosophers, explorers, artists, and scientists who brought together their skills to produce some of the most intriguing artifacts ever created.

"Where in the world would we be without maps? Mapmakers have mapped every part of Earth. They have even mapped the moon! Read how maps are made and how to use them. Then learn how to make your own map."--cover p. [4].