On The Map: Why the World Looks the Way It Does
Simon GarfieldFrom Mappa Mundi to Google Maps - the bestselling Just My Type author turns his gaze to maps.
Packed with accompanying map illustrations & images.Maps fascinate us. They chart our understanding of the world and they log our progress, but above all they tell our stories. From the early sketches of philosophers & explorers through to Google Maps & beyond, Simon Garfield examines how maps both relate & realign our history.
With a historical sweep ranging from Ptolemy to Twitter, Garfield explores the legendary, impassable (& non-existent) mountains of Kong, the role of cartography in combatting cholera, the 17th-century Dutch craze for Atlases, the Norse discovery of America, how a Venetian monk mapped the world from his cell & the Muppets' knack of instant map-travel. Along the way are pocket maps of dragons, Mars, murders & more, with plenty of illustrations & prints to signpost the route.
From the bestselling & widely-adored author of Just My Type, On The Map is a witty & irrepressible examination of where we've been, how we got there & where we're going.Simon Garfield is the author of more than a dozen acclaimed books of non-fiction, including the international bestseller, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts, & a trilogy of edited diaries from the Mass Observation Archive, which includes the bestselling Our Hidden Lives. He lives in London & St Ives, with old maps lining the walls.