Map Book

Product Description

Maps are not just diagrams of the route from A to B
- from the earliest times they have helped us make sense of our world from the very local to the global. Simply organised as a progression through time each map is not only a beautiful work of art in its own right but also tells us about our changing perception of the earth. Sometimes of course maps tell lies & there are examples represented here that are meant to alter or influence our understanding of the world around us. There are maps of oceans & continents charted by heroic adventurers sailing into the unknown at sea for years in tiny ships. For every example of a beautifully embellished map that has survived there must have been scores of cartographers who perished at sea or in unknown parts. Maps are not just about understanding & representing the physical world: they have an administrative use in demarcating national boundaries or individual plots of land a social use in showing who lives where a military use in depicting the layout of enemy positions a political or propaganda use in showing one country or faction at an advantage over others. All are represented in this book a history of the world in images from around the globe & from every epoch.