The Map Reader: Theories of Mapping Practice and Cartographic Representation

From the charts of ancient mariners exploring new found lands to the age of Google Earth, maps are about far more than just navigation. They reflect the latest technologies, culture and the distribution of power and politics of their age.

The Map Reader provides, for the first time, a single source for the most important literature about the nature of mapping practices from the last hundred years. Fifty four theoretical and thought provoking texts demonstrate how cartography works as a powerful representational form and explores how different mapping practices have been conceptualised in particular social and historical contexts.

These original interpretative essays set the literature into context within the themes of politics, people, aesthetics and technology while drawing from leading scholars and researchers from across the academic spectrum including cartography, geography, anthropology, architecture, engineering, computer science and graphic design.

While the rhetorical power and technical complexity of how maps work has remained relatively under-analysed across the social sciences there has been a recent resurgence of mapping practices across the humanities, as well as in the information sciences, bio-informatics and human computer studies.

Written as a comprehensive guide to cover all of these disciplines The Map Reader ensures that the most important cartographic ideas are made available to researchers, students and cartography enthusiast alike.