Cartographia: Mapping Civilizations
by Vincent Virga
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List Price: $60.00
Our Price: $31.82
Your Save: $ 28.18 ( 47% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Little, Brown and Company
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 912
EAN: 9780316997669
ISBN: 0316997668
Label: Little, Brown and Company
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: 2007-10-25
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Studio: Little, Brown and Company
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Splendid images, awful prose
Comment: I recently had the opportunity to peruse this book in a local library. I agree with all of the other reviewers that this book has astounding images, well-reproduced, and documenting a wide variety of maps in a multitude of different contexts. There are plenty of cartographic classics (the double sided ancient Chinese grid map, the "clover" Crusader map centered around Jerusalem) alongside some less well known maps (an Etruscan divining liver map--that's a stone replica of a liver with marks about how to divine things from it, a Japanese historical battle map showing the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate).
However, I must say that the accompanying text is really lacking. To be frank, it's downright repulsive. Stylistically, it's uninspiring at best. Furthermore, the text is filled with "explanations" about "what's really going on" that are totally unsubstantiated. Unfortunately, this book is hardly unique in that regard. It is symptomatic of our times to show "expertise" on this or that via simplistic reductive arguments that we've all grown too tired to challenge.
Two examples come to mind specifically. In the section on Japanese maps of Japan, he tries to argue that the ambiguity of the maps implies a mindset amongst the Japanese putting Japan as being "undefined in space" or something of that nature. Now that claim may very well be true, but he presents next to argument to support it other than images which appear just as ambiguous as other maps. There may be a way to deduce that conclusion from the maps but he doesn't show anything, he merely states.
More nauseating was the pat analysis of the Vietnam war. He reproduces a formerly classified US government map showing South Vietnam totally fragmented by VC presence and uses it to launch into a tired tirade about the follies of the US government blah blah blah. Once again, the conclusion may or may not be true but shiny pictures aren't really a substitute for critical analysis.
This book raises some very interesting questions about what and how much one can conclude about a society from the character of its maps. However, the shameless sophistry that follows makes it clear that the author has little regard for the complexity that such questions entail.
So if I was addressing a potential buyer/reader, I would say that the images in the book really are fabulous and the comments are at times enlightening. But if you're the kind of reader who doesn't appreciate pat conclusions that are pre-determined by some unspoken post-god-knows-what party line, brace yourself for a beautiful book but a stomach turning read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: no show
Comment: never received the book - was later informed it was sold by mistake and i received a refund.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Love maps and traveling thru time.
Comment: This book gives a unique glimpse at not only the history of cartography, but also the various purposes maps can serve. For maps lovers, like myself, the material is a window into other worlds of ancient knowledge thru beautiful illustrations and clear text.
Customer Rating:
Summary: amazing
Comment: informative, beautiful, fun ... what more can i say ... one of my favorite coffee tables books ever!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended
Comment: I saw the author on C-Span2 and ordered the book immediately. I was not disappointed. This is a gorgeous and informative book about the history of maps and how they reflect our understanding of the world in which we live. Anyone who has ever enjoyed the beauty of maps or has wondered how maps were made before aerial photography will love this book.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Splendid images, awful prose
Comment: I recently had the opportunity to peruse this book in a local library. I agree with all of the other reviewers that this book has astounding images, well-reproduced, and documenting a wide variety of maps in a multitude of different contexts. There are plenty of cartographic classics (the double sided ancient Chinese grid map, the "clover" Crusader map centered around Jerusalem) alongside some less well known maps (an Etruscan divining liver map--that's a stone replica of a liver with marks about how to divine things from it, a Japanese historical battle map showing the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate).
However, I must say that the accompanying text is really lacking. To be frank, it's downright repulsive. Stylistically, it's uninspiring at best. Furthermore, the text is filled with "explanations" about "what's really going on" that are totally unsubstantiated. Unfortunately, this book is hardly unique in that regard. It is symptomatic of our times to show "expertise" on this or that via simplistic reductive arguments that we've all grown too tired to challenge.
Two examples come to mind specifically. In the section on Japanese maps of Japan, he tries to argue that the ambiguity of the maps implies a mindset amongst the Japanese putting Japan as being "undefined in space" or something of that nature. Now that claim may very well be true, but he presents next to argument to support it other than images which appear just as ambiguous as other maps. There may be a way to deduce that conclusion from the maps but he doesn't show anything, he merely states.
More nauseating was the pat analysis of the Vietnam war. He reproduces a formerly classified US government map showing South Vietnam totally fragmented by VC presence and uses it to launch into a tired tirade about the follies of the US government blah blah blah. Once again, the conclusion may or may not be true but shiny pictures aren't really a substitute for critical analysis.
This book raises some very interesting questions about what and how much one can conclude about a society from the character of its maps. However, the shameless sophistry that follows makes it clear that the author has little regard for the complexity that such questions entail.
So if I was addressing a potential buyer/reader, I would say that the images in the book really are fabulous and the comments are at times enlightening. But if you're the kind of reader who doesn't appreciate pat conclusions that are pre-determined by some unspoken post-god-knows-what party line, brace yourself for a beautiful book but a stomach turning read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: no show
Comment: never received the book - was later informed it was sold by mistake and i received a refund.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Love maps and traveling thru time.
Comment: This book gives a unique glimpse at not only the history of cartography, but also the various purposes maps can serve. For maps lovers, like myself, the material is a window into other worlds of ancient knowledge thru beautiful illustrations and clear text.
Customer Rating:
Summary: amazing
Comment: informative, beautiful, fun ... what more can i say ... one of my favorite coffee tables books ever!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended
Comment: I saw the author on C-Span2 and ordered the book immediately. I was not disappointed. This is a gorgeous and informative book about the history of maps and how they reflect our understanding of the world in which we live. Anyone who has ever enjoyed the beauty of maps or has wondered how maps were made before aerial photography will love this book.
CARTOGRAPHIA offers a stunning array of 200 of the most beautiful, important, and fascinating maps in existence, from the world's largest cartographic collection, at the Library of Congress. These maps show how our idea of the world has shifted and grown over time, and each map tells its own unique story about nations, politics, and ambitions. The chosen images, with their accompanying stories, introduce the reader to an exciting new way of "reading" maps as travelogues---living history from the earliest of man's imaginings about planet earth to our current attempts at charting cyberspace.
Among the rare gems included in the book are the Waldseemuller Map of the World from 1507, the first to include the designation "America"; pages from the Ortelius's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of 1570, considered the first modern atlas; rare maps from Africa, Asia, and Oceania that challenge traditional Western perspectives; William Faulkner's hand-drawn 1936 map of the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi; and even a map of the Human Genome. In an oversized format, with gorgeous four-color reproductions throughout, Catrographia will appeal to collectors, historians, and anyone looking for a perfect gift.
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