A contemporary follow-up to the groundbreaking Power of Maps, this book takes a fresh look at what maps do, whose interests they serve, and how they can be used in surprising, creative, and radical ways. Denis Wood describes how cartography facilitated the rise of the modern state and how maps continue to embody and project the interests of their creators. He demystifies the hidden assumptions of mapmaking and explores the promises and limitations of diverse counter-mapping practices today. Thought-provoking illustrations include U.S. Geological Survey maps; electoral and transportation maps; and numerous examples of critical cartography, participatory GIS, and map art.

This volume ventures into terrain where even the most sophisticated map fails to lead--through the mapmaker's bias. Denis Wood shows how maps are not impartial reference objects, but rather instruments of communication, persuasion, and power. Like paintings, they express a point of view. By connecting us to a reality that could not exist in the absence of maps--a world of property lines and voting rights, taxation districts and enterprise zones--they embody and project the interests of their creators. Sampling the scope of maps available today, illustrations include Peter Gould's AIDS map, Tom Van Sant's map of the earth, U.S. Geological Survey maps, and a child's drawing of the world. THE POWER OF MAPS was published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Design.

Blending science and technology studies, sociology, and geography with a host of archival material and gorgeously produced maps, The Politics of Maps explores how the geographical sciences came to be entangled with the politics, territorial claim-making, and nation-state building of Israel/Palestine.

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Prisoners of Geography, a fascinating, “refreshing, and very useful” (The Washington Post) follow-up that uses ten maps to explain the challenges to today’s world powers and how they presage a volatile future. Tim Marshall’s global bestseller Prisoners of Geography offered us a “fresh way of looking at maps” (The New York Times Book Review), showing how every nation’s choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas, and walls. Since then, the geography hasn’t changed, but the world has. Now, in this “wonderfully entertaining and lucid account, written with wit, pace, and clarity” (Mirror, UK), Marshall takes us into ten regions set to shape global politics. Find out why US interest in the Middle East will wane; why Australia is now beginning an epic contest with China; how Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the UK are cleverly positioning themselves for greater power; why Ethiopia can control Egypt; and why Europe’s next refugee crisis looms closer than we think, as does a cutting-edge arms race to control space. Innovative, compelling, and delivered with Marshall’s trademark wit and insight, this is “an immersive blend of history, economics, and political analysis that puts geography at the center of human affairs” (Publishers Weekly).

Published on the occasion of the exhibition at the British Library, London, April 30-Sept. 19, 2010.

A Wall Street Journal besteller and a USA Today Best Book of 2020 Named Energy Writer of the Year for The New Map by the American Energy Society “A master class on how the world works.” —NPR Pulitzer Prize-winning author and global energy expert, Daniel Yergin offers a revelatory new account of how energy revolutions, climate battles, and geopolitics are mapping our future The world is being shaken by the collision of energy, climate change, and the clashing power of nations in a time of global crisis. Out of this tumult is emerging a new map of energy and geopolitics. The “shale revolution” in oil and gas has transformed the American economy, ending the “era of shortage” but introducing a turbulent new era. Almost overnight, the United States has become the world's number one energy powerhouse. Yet concern about energy's role in climate change is challenging the global economy and way of life, accelerating a second energy revolution in the search for a low-carbon future. All of this has been made starker and more urgent by the coronavirus pandemic and the economic dark age that it has wrought. World politics is being upended, as a new cold war develops between the United States and China, and the rivalry grows more dangerous with Russia, which is pivoting east toward Beijing. Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping are converging both on energy and on challenging American leadership, as China projects its power and influence in all directions. The South China Sea, claimed by China and the world's most critical trade route, could become the arena where the United States and China directly collide. The map of the Middle East, which was laid down after World War I, is being challenged by jihadists, revolutionary Iran, ethnic and religious clashes, and restive populations. But the region has also been shocked by the two recent oil price collapses--and by the very question of oil's future in the rest of this century. A master storyteller and global energy expert, Daniel Yergin takes the reader on an utterly riveting and timely journey across the world's new map. He illuminates the great energy and geopolitical questions in an era of rising political turbulence and points to the profound challenges that lie ahead.

Renaissance map-makers produced ever more accurate descriptions of geography, which were also beautiful works of art. They filled the oceans Europeans were exploring with ships and to describe the real ships which were the newest and best products of technology. Above all the ships were there to show the European conquest of the seas of the world.

Presents a chronological overview of the history of cartography, from the earliest maps of prehistory to the engraved maps of the seventeenth century and beyond. Includes illustrations.

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Elliott and Thompson Limited.

?We all rely on the apparent accuracy and objectivity of maps, but often do not see the very process of mapping as political. Are the power and purpose of maps inherently political? Maps and Politics addresses this important question and seeks to emphasize that the apparent ‘objectivity’ of the map-making and map-using process cannot be divorced from aspects of the politics of representation. Maps have played, and continue to play, a major role in both international and domestic politics. They show how visual geographical representations can be made to reflect and advance political agendas in powerful ways. The major developments in this field over the last century are responses both to cartographic progression and to a greater emphasis on graphic imagery in societies affected by politicization, democratization, and consumer and cultural shifts. Jeremy Black asks whether bias-free cartography is possible and demonstrates that maps are not straightforward visual texts, but contain political and politicizing subtexts that need to be read with care.