James R. Akerman

More a history of map-making than it is of maps. The chapter on the US is the closest to what I was expecting from this collection of essays, that being a history of the way maps have been used and have changed in response to needs. It was the chapter I thought I would least like, instead it turned out to be the most informative, the best written, and was thoroughly engaging. Next to it in quality is the last chapter, on the consumption of maps. Highly interesting, showing how maps were used and distributed amongst the population, away from the Portolan charts used by mariners. I got a lot of ideas for role playing games, as widespread use of maps in Europe developed in the 16th C, amongst the elite.

There is a chapter on Imaginary maps, or rather maps of imaginary places, such as Tolkien's Middle Earth and More's Utopia. I was quite looking forward to this chapter, anticipating a wealth of info on all sorts of maps I didn't know about, from games and books, didactic aids on morality, and wishful thinking maps of would-be conquerors. Sadly, this wasn't to be. The chapter is well written, and the discussion of ironic maps was welcome - a map designed to disorient the reader sounds splendid. But overall the chapter is far too short, and doesn't cover nearly enough ground. Especially lacking was coverage of maps from games. I had seen a picture of Risk while skimming the book before reading, but it turns out it was from the last chapter. And oddly, it wasn't actually discussed.

Which leads into one of the biggest problems with the book. There are a lot of interesting maps in this book, and very few of them are described well, in any way! Lots of times, the text will describe a map at length yet not include it, or it will be on the next page, or even in a different chapter. And often, the print quality or size will be such that you can't really read the map. You just get impressions of them. Which is fine, for a certain amount of edification. But I wanted to get engrossed in Maps, and this is not the book for that. Especially odd is the chapter where almost all the maps are in French. Bizarre editorial choice for an English book written for an English audience. It didn't matter that much, though, as the quality on them wasn't that good - many of them couldn't be read to begin with.

For the other four chapters, the writing overall is serviceable, even if the content is often wholly uninteresting. Well, it might be interesting if the branch of history the author is focusing on is your thing, but rarely did I care about the local ordinances under discussion. There is some interesting material on early maps of the world, how people used the maps for a wider cosmographical purpose, to orient the viewer in the Universe. Physical reliability was rarely necessary. The wayfaring maps were interesting, as was the info on Portolan charts. But frequently the author would get bogged down in detail that is of no use to a beginner, the book's target audience. Boring would be an apt description for about half of the book, and not "boring" in the sense of most non-fiction (no fiction-like narratives), but "boring" in the sense of finding it hard to stay awake in the afternoon while drinking coffee. Thankfully the editing is good and you can confidently skip everything you think you should in order to save your sanity.

3 stars oc… (mer)