Some Recent Magazines and a Book

For your amusement, a smattering of recent magazine and book covers using maps as an element of their design.

From The Nation: President Obama must decide on future American involvement in Afghanistan.



Stores Magazine suggests that Vietnam, Indonesia and Mexico (VIM?) are the countries to watch for new muscle in emerging markets.



Time believes that California, in spite of being "an apocalyptic mess of raging wildfires, soaring unemployment, mass foreclosures and political paralysis," is still the future of American innovation and growth.





Finally, in his book, Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche, Ethan Waters maps out the way the United States shapes the expression of mental illness around the globe.

MapMarks Transit Blog

This week is Transit Map Theme Week at Cartophilia!

In the last several weeks I have either happened across, or had links to interesting transit maps sent my way. So many in fact, I don't want to cram them all in to one post.

Today, I will introduce you to a new blog by Transit Map maven, Mark Ovenden: MapMarks. Mark promises to share with us about "maps, metro's, cartography, transport and a handful of other nonsense."

Mark Ovenden is the author of two recent books on transit maps:

Transit Maps: The World's First Collection of Every Urban Train Map on Earth
Paris Underground: The Maps, Stations, and Design of the Metro UPDATE 1/12: This book just got a review in the NewYorker.

Via The Map Room

Why Don't We Do It On The Road?

Jennifer Hunt and Dan Baritchi claim to offer "The Best & Most Popular Love and Sex Advice Column on the Internet Today..." So what do you these days, when you have a popular website? Publish a book! (Whatever happened to the Internet replacing the printed word?) Their new book, 1,001 Best Places to Have Sex in America: A When, Where, and How Guide, purports to offer tips to broaden the reader’s "horny horizons".

A careful examination of the cover (which is the extent of the book review you are going to get here) reveals that the best places to have sex are in Georgia, on a desert mesa, on the Golden Gate Bridge, on a water tower, in the Statue of Liberty, on a Ferris Wheel, and at a Drive-In theatre. (Hmm, two out of seven for me...TMI)

I'm not sure I want to know what they do with "hot spot stickers."

Via Breakup Girl

Give the Gift of Map Books

The holiday shopping season is rapidly approaching. Here are two recently published books of interest to that cartophile on your shopping list:

The Map as Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography by Katharine Harmon

In a sequel, of sorts, to her previous book on map art, You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination, Harmon promises to lead her readers to:

different destinations: places turned upside down or inside out, territories riddled with marks understood only by their maker, realms connected more to the interior mind than to the exterior world. These are the places of artists' maps, that happy combination of information and illusion that flourishes in basement studios and downtown galleries alike.

You Are Here featured previously on Cartophilia:
Happy Father's Day to Me
On the Road to...?
Be My Cartographic Valentine

Strange Maps: An Atlas of Cartographic Curiosities by Frank Jacobs

Jacobs has been publishing his hugely popular Strange Maps blog since 2006, where he "collects and comments on all kinds of cartographic curiosa". As has become a blogger custom lately, he has collected over one hundred of his strangest maps into this handsome soft cover coffee table book. Includes his extensive commentary.

UPDATE 11/13: The Freakonomics blog has an interview with Frank Jacobs (HT to The Map Room).

Interestingly, both books feature upside-down/inside-out maps on their covers.

Tell them Cartophilia sent you.

#495

Leviathan

Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld, is a young adult steampunk novel set in an alternate-history Europe. The Great War is coming, but instead of the Allies vs Central Powers, it is the Clankers vs Darwinists. The Clankers have developed great steam powered machines, and the Darwinists have bred giant beasts as their weapons.



The map illustration is intentionally reminiscent of the "allegorical maps" of the period.

Via boing boing

The Scrambled States of America

What if all the states decided to try living in another part of the country?

In The Scrambled States of America, Uncle Sam narrates a story written and illustrated by Laurie Keller.



From Publishers Weekly:

"Keller endows each of the 50 states with a unique personality and, as all of them develop a case of wanderlust, she presents geography lessons as clever quips exchanged across state lines."

Not surprisingly, the states eventually decide they like it better in their "regular" spaces (Florida was too cold up north, and California found itself allergic to Wisconsin's cheese!)

This story is also available as a video and card game. Later, the states got back together to put on a talent show.

Children's books previously on Cartophilia:
The Little Man in the Map
Roxaboxen
Weslandia
There's a Map on my Lap!

Map Addict

I just finished reading Map Addict by Mike Parker.

"My name is Mike and I am a map addict. There, it's said!"

Like me, Mike has loved maps since he was a wee tyke. He became addicted the Ordinance Survey, the official map set published by the British government, covering every square inch of the island nation. Today he is a travel writer and television and radio personality.

In his book, he not only shares the story of his personal journey with maps, but he also includes chapters on the history of British cartography, how they won the Prime Meridian competition, the most interesting and boring maps, and wages a one-man war against the "moronic blandishments of the Sat Nav age."

Not too surprising, I enjoyed this book immensely. My only complaint is that for a book about maps, there are relatively few illustrations.

So, as if the fact that this book is about a map addict, one who is more of a fanatic than me (hard to believe), wasn't enough to recommend this book... When I finished, I browsed the Bibliography and found in the "Blog and Discussion" section, several map blogs with which I am familiar... and this!

Cartophilia "great blog, newsy and always thoughtful"

Sweet! I have been acknowledged in print! I am somebody.

The Little Man in the Map

The Little Man In the Map: With Clues To Remember All 50 States, by E. Andrew Martonyi, is an engagind little book with friendly illustrations that is designed to help school-age children learn the names and locations off all the states. Learning all 50 U.S. states is easy when you learn from The Little Man In the Map! Asked by their teacher to find clues for memorizing the states, students begin to see images: a hat, a shirt, a pair of boots formed by state boundaries. When they put some of them together, they're amazed to find the outline of a man standing in the middle of the map.

Excited by their discovery, they draw a face and arms on him and create The Little Man In the Map, whom they nickname MIM. Their imaginations bring MIM alive, and with his help they discover the surprising roles all the states can play. Soon they can spot the elf, the playful dog, the spooky head, and all the others.

Using rhyme and mnemonics, the narrator tells a story about states in each region and how they interact with each other. It has apparently been used in classrooms with great success.

Indiana is Michigan's sleeve... that's cute.

As a child, I was already in love with, and studying maps. I suspect I would have quickly become annoyed with this approach... but then I don't pretend I was a "normal" child when it comes to geography.

#445

Beach Reading

Next week I'll be on the beach! Location and maps will be blogged, to be sure...

But in the meantime, I know you're all dying to know what I'll be reading on the beach:



(Feel free to purchase from Amazon through these links to help keep Cartophilia solvent. Thanks!)

Empire: Striding Across Africa

I've been reading Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power by Niall Ferguson wherein he explains how "an archipelago of rainy islands... came to rule the world." Richly illustrated with maps charts and drawings, this book relates the events that led to British domination in India and Africa, and a presence on every continent. It was not hyperbole to say that the sun never set on the British Empire. Some critics have called Ferguson's work "revisionist", as he often defends the actions of the Empire as an overall good thing for its subjects (contrary to other recent scholarship). His final chapter is directed at the United States. What lessons can be learned from British successes and errors by the inheritors of the new "world empire" as that power is challenged?

Several chapters are devoted to the British advances across Africa; to the South from Egypt and to the North from The Cape. Cecil Rhodes, the diamond magnate and founder of the state of Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe and Zambia), had a vision of the Empire in Africa connected, north and south. In the illustration below, Rhodes can be seen sneering at his critics.



Lord Salisbury, the Foreign Secretary and later Prime Minister, was opposed to this vision: "I can imagine no more uncomfortable position than the possession of a narrow strip of territory in the very heart of Africa, three month's distance from the coast, which should be separating the forces of a powerful empire like Germany and... another European Power." He did not believe that territory should be acquired, simply because it looks good on a map. Speaking of Rhodes, he said, "I think that the constant study of maps is apt to disturb men’s reasoning powers"

This quote has of course become the motto for Cartophilia.

Rhodes' vision of connecting African holdings, North and South, came to fruition after the First World War and the acquisition (by League of Nations "mandate") of Tanganyika (later Tanzania).



Thanks to Pascal for tipping me off to this one.

Ringworld Manhattan

Several people sent this one to me:

Here & There is a map of Manhattan looking uptown from 3rd and 7th, and downtown from 3rd and 35th. It puts the viewer simultaneously above the city and in it where she stands, both looking down and looking forward.



Of course, science fiction fans immediately think of Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama:



and Larry Niven's Ringworld:



Television's Babylon 5 also took place inside a circular space station:



and video game fans can't help but think of Halo (a blatant rip-off of Ringworld):

Food Matters

Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes by Mark Bittman:



An apple a day keeps the world's problems at bay?

Bittman offers a no-nonsense rundown on how government policy, big business marketing, and global economics influence what we choose to put on the table each evening. He demystifies buzzwords like "organic," "sustainable," and "local" and offers straightforward, budget-conscious advice that will help you make small changes that will shrink your carbon footprint -- and your waistline.

Other examples of apples in maps and maps on apples.

#375

Brainiac

Ken Jennings is the greatest champion in the history of the game show, Jeopardy!. I recently read his book, Brainiac, which tells not only the story of his amazing run on the show, but also explores the history of trivia, game shows, and today's trivia culture, including College Bowl and trivia night at your local tavern.

On his blog yesterday, Ken announced that he is writing a book about me! OK, not just me... but the whole map-lover subculture.

I new a smart guy like that would also be interested in maps.

Ken Jennings previously on Cartophilia.

HT to The Map Room

#355

Nessantico in A Magic of Twilight

I am currently reading A Magic of Twilight: Book One of the Nessantico Cycle by S. L. Farrell. George R. R. Martin has called it Farrell’s "best yet, a delicious melange of politics, war, sorcery, and religion in a richly imagined world."

Whenever I read a fantasy novel in a "richly imagined world", one of the first things I look for is a map of the imaginary world. Following the acknowledgements, I was pleased to find this map:



But wait! There's more! I turned the page to find these two maps:




And finally, not three, but four maps:



Each map zooms in on the city of Nessantico, providing a useful guide to this detailed setting. Very helpful. No fantasy author should be allowed to publish without some sort of map in their book!

I have enjoyed other books I've read by Farrell, most notably, Dark Waters Embrace (writing under the name, Stephen Leigh).

AND

If that wasn't enough, I just noticed a detail on the book cover illustration (blown up below) by Todd Lockwood. The throne room in Nessantico City includes a globe!




#348

A Secret Atlas

Being a member of the of the Royal Cartographer's family can be a dangerous job. Not only do you draw the maps, but you must do the exploration as well. In Michael A. Stackpole's latest fantasy series, starting with the A Secret Atlas, the author tells the story of this family, and the wealth and power that their secret knowledge brings. Unfortunately, their explorations uncover new discoveries that can bring chaos to their King's realm... These fantasy novels appear to offer a new kind of magic. I especially like the title of the second book, Cartomancy. Yes, there IS magic in maps... I'm sure the story is quite gripping. I'm just not sure I can wade into yet another fantasy series to find out. If you've read it, please let me know how it was...

Principal Mountains and Rivers

BibliOdyssey regularly posts fascinating and detailed illustrations from old books, magazines and posters from archives. Naturally from time to time they include maps.



Illustration Title: Comparative Heights of the Principal Mountains and Lengths of the Principal Rivers of The World

Publisher: William Darton

Publication Title: 'New and Improved View of the Comparative Heights of the Principal Mountains and Lengths of the Principal Rivers In The World, The whole Judiciously arranged from the various Authorities Extant'.

Author: WR Gardner

Date: 1823

Even better, there's a BibliOdyssey book! BibliOdyssey: Amazing Archival Images from the Internet

Scotland Towed

"Every June, Scotland is towed 1000 miles south so it can have a summer. Only 10% of people in Scotland know this."

It's true! Would your Uncle Cartophiliac lie to you?



From Great Lies to Tell Kids by Andy Riley; the somewhat deranged, but very funny author of The Book of Bunny Suicides.

Who doesn't enjoy telling small "tall tales" to kids?... you know, just to mess with their mind...

Other good lies from the book:

"In Denmark, they use bacon as banknotes."

"There used to be a ship in that bottle but it sank."

"Most birds wear parachutes in case they suddenly forget how to fly."

Mapping Rats

From Time Magazine online: Mapping the Rats in New York City, by Christine Gorman.

Michael Mills, a veteran health inspector in New York City, helps create a map of the city you won't find in any guidebook: a rat map. That's right, a map of the New York neighborhoods that rodent populations call home.

The city's rat map was first introduced a year ago, with an intensive pilot program in the Bronx. Mills and other inspectors scoured the streets, building by building, cataloging rat hot spots — places that show so-called active rat signs, such as lived-in burrows, fresh droppings, telltale gnaw marks on plastic garbage bags — in an effort to target rodent-control measures more effectively. That geocoding information was entered into each inspector's handheld indexing computer and aggregated with similar data from all across the borough.

The New York City Department of Health and Hygiene provides a Rat Information Portal. From there you can pull up the Rat Map and retrieve rat data by borough, community district, zip code, or specific address.

Note the cute little rat icon that pops up when updating the map.

The most interesting book I have read on rats... OK, really the only book I have ever read on rats, is Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan. I enjoyed reading this book, and not just because of the great map cover:



Sullivan provides a compact history of rats in North America, but focuses primarily on New York City. His "field studies" include spending weeks in alleys observing the daily life of rats, and riding with "pest control technicians".

Publishers Weekly said, "Like any true New Yorker, Sullivan is able to convey simultaneously the feelings of disgust and awe that most city dwellers have for the scurrying masses that live among them."

HT to La Gringissima for the Time article.

The Next Country

The Next Country is a new collection of poetry by Idra Novey.

From the publisher: "In these powerful lyric poems, Idra Novey’s exploration of “country” extends beyond national boundaries into the countries of marriage and family, history and the unspoken, leading to a bold and imaginative reckoning of the self with the larger world."

To help convey this sensibility, the publisher used a piece by Matthew Cusick as the cover art. Cusick recycles old maps into this work.

From a 2006 exhibit at the Lisa Dent Gallery in San Francisco:

Matthew Cusick's newest paintings are a series of Texas highways traversing allegorical landscapes. For his second exhibition at Lisa Dent Gallery, Cusick has refined his technique of painting with maps, using them as a surrogate for paint - their inherent visual qualities of tone, value, and density employed to render the spatial image of the highways.

More examples of his cartographic art at: GeoCarta and Creative Mapping.

HT to La Gringissima

Michigan's Superior Peninsula

In his book, Lost States: Real Quests for American Statehood (discussed earlier this week) Michael Trinklein discussed the proposed State of Superior. Composed of Michigan's Upper Peninsula and portions of Northern Wisconsin, this state would presumably give the attention this region deserves, but is not getting from Lansing or Madison.



While the proposal gained some traction among "Yoopers" in the 1960s and `70s, it never came to a formal vote. Although they do have their own flag:



Some residents of the U.P. have an inflated view of their region's importance (as seen in this postcard):



(See other inflated views)

Additional map postcards with views of pleasant peninsulas:







Speaking of the Keweenaw Peninsula... For those of us of a certain age, who grew up in or near Detroit, we remember TV Weatherman, Sonny Elliot, and his special recognition of the Keweenaw Peninsula... ("Right... spweeeeet!... here...") Watch this video just past the two minute mark:





As you can see, his very first weathermap of Michigan lopped off the Keweenaw, and he had to add it on... In later years he made sure his (higher-tech) weather maps always had a detachable Keweenaw. He was also famous for coining new weather terms: cloudy and cool = "clool"!

Lost States

Last week I wrote about How the States Got Their Shapes. It turns out that the fifty states we know and love were not the only states that we might have seen... Over the course of our history, many other states have been proposed, only to be shot down or ignored.

Michael Trinklein has written a book about these failed attempts: Lost States: Real Quests for American Statehood. Heavily illustrated, this book tells the tale of would be state-builders and forgotten corners of geography, with wit and humor. Some of these attempts were very serious, some no more than pranks. Here are two examples:

The colonists who followed Daniel Boone through the Cumberland Gap in the 1770s called their coloney "Transylvania" (wich means "through the woods" and has nothing to do with vampires). After the start of the Revolutionary War, representatives went to the Continental Congress seeking recognition, but Virginia, who claimed most of that land, would hear nothing of it. Later, the area was rearranged into Kentucky and Tennessee.



Many new states have been proposed by carving up or rearranging already existing states. Often because residents of a region feel neglected by the rest of the state government. Folks in norther California often feel ignored and underappreciated by the rest of the state. The same goes for southern Oregon. In 1941 a new state, Jefferson (to keep Washington company?), was proposed. A cabal attempted to declare independence on December 4... but were overshadowed by the events of December 7.



For more samples, visit the author's website.

How the States Got Their Shapes

How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein. I read this book several months ago, and have been meaning to mention it here....

Each of the 51 chapters (it also includes the District of Columbia) discusses some history of each state, focusing primarily on the decisions that were made by kings, settlers and Congress when drawing borders around states.

This book answers some burning questions:

• Why West Virginia has a finger creeping up the side of Pennsylvania


• Why Michigan has an upper peninsula that isn't attached to Michigan


• Why some Hawaiian islands are not Hawaii


• Why Texas and California are so out sized, especially when so many Midwestern states are nearly identical in size


• Was Delaware really necessary?

Stein tells the stories of these states with humor. My favorite is the sad story of Maryland, and how they LOST every single border dispute over history (just look at it... a very unnaturally shaped state.):



As a resident of Ohio, I was particularly interested in the story of Connecticut and their claim to lands in the West. Like many of the original thirteen colonies, they claimed land stretching all the way to the Pacific. In most cases, it wasn't that they truly expected to govern that land, but they wanted the right to sell the acreage to settlers. Eventually they were obliged to relinquish they claim to half of Pennsylvania, and much of the territory in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois as Congress organized that area as part of the Northwest Ordinance:



However, Connecticut reserved the right to sell the land in what is now northeast Ohio. It was their "Western Reserve." I had often wondered where the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland got their name.



My only criticism is the author's arrangement of the chapters. He chose to put the states in alphabetical order, which is fine if you are not reading the whole thing straight through, but want to find and refer to specific states. I would have preferred that he arranged them by regions. So many of the states have common histories of their borders (such as the 49th parallel and the Mason-Dixon Line). If arranged thematically, many of the chapters would not have needed to be so repetitive. Still, this book is a must for map and geography buffs.

#280

Mexico City

Yesterday I wrote about a new book, National Geographic Society Exploration Experience: The Heroic Exploits of the World's Greatest Explorers, that includes reproductions of historical maps inserted in pockets with nearly every article. One of the maps I enjoyed was this one, attibuted to Hernán Cortés, of Tenochtitlan, the capital city of the Aztecs.



It reminded me that I have not shared all of the map postcards I brought back from my trip to Mexico last August. (The others are here, here and here.)

Below is a map postcard of the Centro Histórico. Our hotel was on Avenida Cinco de Mayo, and the rooftop restaurant had a terrific view of the Metropolitan Cathedral and the Federal Building both on the Zócalo, a large central plaza. It was a short walk to many of the other important and interesting sights.



To get to other parts of the city, we did not hesitate to take the city's underground metro system. It was less expensive, sometimes quicker, and generally more safe, than taking a taxi.