Thursday, December 12, 2013
A History of the World in 12 Maps
by Jerry Brotton
I love maps, and don't mind wasting time poring over one. However, I've never given much thought about them--how they're made, why they're made, and all that. So this book ended up being a nice little voyage of discovery for me. As a combination of history and maps, it seemed natural to put it on my reading list. Like Tom Standage's A History of the World in 6 Glasses, Professor Brotton's book takes a single concept, in this case maps of the world, and follows it through history. For each map, he sets up the scene of the society in which the map was created. He looks at why the mapmaker(s) created the peace, and what it tells us about the culture. I'm quite glad I checked it out.
LibraryThing link
I love maps, and don't mind wasting time poring over one. However, I've never given much thought about them--how they're made, why they're made, and all that. So this book ended up being a nice little voyage of discovery for me. As a combination of history and maps, it seemed natural to put it on my reading list. Like Tom Standage's A History of the World in 6 Glasses, Professor Brotton's book takes a single concept, in this case maps of the world, and follows it through history. For each map, he sets up the scene of the society in which the map was created. He looks at why the mapmaker(s) created the peace, and what it tells us about the culture. I'm quite glad I checked it out.
LibraryThing link
Labels: CheckItOut, UnshelvedBookClub
// posted by John @ 10:36 PM 
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