Truth Through Maps

Saturday, July 01 2006, 01:32 AM EDT

Contributed by: Post

Truth Through Maps
Truth Through Maps
The truth can be very slippery. It is about perspectives, points of view, and experiences. Frankly truth, like life, is much too complicated to believe that there is a simple, single "truth."

Maps are powerful shapers of truth about the world. In their newly revised book, SEEING THROUGH MAPS: Many Ways to See the World, authors Denis Wood, Ward L. Kaiser (a former Paramus resident), and Bob Abramms take a hard look at truth by carefully inspecting the familiar images we experience every day.

In this dynamic book, the authors challenge the popular world-view by questioning images in general, and the specific messages communicated through maps.

Professor John H. Andrews of the Department of Geography at Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland) says the book is "compulsively readable…you discussed a number of projections I had known nothing about, and even succeed in making some new points about Mercator." Professor Tom Koch of the Department of Geography at UBC (Vancouver, BC, Canada) says "Seeing Through Maps is absolutely the best introduction available on map projections, their history and importance. The text weaves the theory and history of maps-at-large - from mental maps to amateur work to high cartography - into a seamless thematic whole.…erudite and invigorating… satisfying and illuminating…" The Geographical Review calls it "substance-packed…thought provoking without being complicated or convoluted"

Seeing Through Maps, however, is about so much more than cartography. By blending graphics and text in a large, landscape format, this book reshapes the act of seeing. Map projections are used as tools for understanding the world from different points of view -- those of the world's countries, the world's cultures, the world's people, and the world's history.

Seeing Through Maps also explains the principles and hidden messages contained in a number of unique maps and provocative images: the Peters Projection Map, an equal-area projection; the Van Sant GeoSphere Map (which is in truth a very sophisticated collage); the Fuller Dymaxion Map; a Toronto Canada-based equidistant map of the world; Minard's Map, which tracks Napoleon's march on Moscow; Petit's African Diaspora Map, which tracks the routes of African slave trading; and a cartogram of global warming. It also includes a redrawing of Mercator's original 1569 world map (unavailable since the 1950's) as well as the original McArthur Universal Corrective Map of the World, an upside down map that has Australia on top.

Government Training News says "This [book] will encourage a spirited discussion of perceptions, world views, and the importance of…seeing things differently." Suitable for social studies, global studies, and psychology courses in universities, Ivor Miller (African Diaspora Studies, DePaul University) says it is "a beautiful study that prepares students to think using multiple perspectives."

A companion DVD, Many Ways to See the World, is available in June, 2006. It includes a 30 minute classroom film (suitable for Junior High to adult), PowerPoint files, sample book chapters, MP3 audio files, as well bonus footage and trailers.

Click here for a related article

SEEING THROUGH MAPS: Many Ways to See the World
by Denis Wood , Ward L. Kaiser and Bob Abramms. 152 pages, 70+ images, 11" x 8-1/2" format. $24.95
Read chapter one on the web at www.diversophy.com/maps.htm
Order from www.odt.org or 1-800-736-1293.
Review copies and author interviews are available from ODT, Inc. Publication Date: July, 2006

Comments (0)

Greater Paramus News and Lifestyle Magazine
http://www.paramuspost.com/article.php/20060701013259677