A nicely done book. A large hardback on pretty good paper. Each map has it’s own page, or sometimes a detail in EXTREME CLOSE-UP with a double page spread of the whole thing overleaf. The reproductions seem to be the best available. There’s everything from pre-Roman trackways to EU referendum voting patterns, so as of 2020 all we’re missing is a Covid outbreak map. There’s the famous ones you’d expect to see like the Mappa Mundi and Beck’s Tube map mixed with some really obscure stuff that must be known only to specialists.

Particularly interesting for me was the Ambleside flood. This appears to be a screenshot from Magic, a GIS I used a lot when I did mapping for Defra. My favourite though must be the Post Roads. It reminds me of a pre-Beck Tube map I once saw where there was still some attempt to match actual geography. It’s well worth having a look at areas familiar to you. So Billericay (‘Billrecay’ here) is virtually a coastal town as there are no stops between there and Gravesend. And Newcastle Upon Tyne appears twice. Once on the Great North Road (with a branch line to Tynemouth, here shown inland) and again on the Coast Road for a separate route up to Berwick. Clever stuff.

Each map has a page of text that tells you a little about the map, the milieu in which it was produced and a little relevant narrative history. The book is perhaps designed to be browsed so it was only when I read it cover to cover that I realised the history is disjointed and sometimes repetitive. The text has been spell checked but not proofread and there are numerous instances of words being actual words, but not the right ones. Also, not everything is factually accurate. On page 246 we are told that “Daniel Defoe, the satirist and author of Gulliver’s Travels, was moved”. I’m sure he was. Many have been, but none more so that Jonathan Swift. Those problems aside, it’s the text which gives context and makes this into a book rather than a collection of pictures.

A good present for someone who likes maps. ( )