On the Map Why the World Looks the Way it Does

LoveReading Says

Simon Garfield excels in getting a quart into a pint pot, cramming the history of maps into a very readable one volume history. From picturing the universe to the London Underground, from the map’s role in exploration and politics, in imperial expansion, mythology and disease he shows how we rely on maps to show us everything from our place in the universe to finding our way round the London Underground, to exposing disease, furthering imperial expansion or just to tell lies either through ignorance or political expedience.

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The Lovereading view...

Packed with interesting facts, written in an incredibly accessible style this book is simply amazing. From early attempts to map the world, where strangely East was at the top of some maps (hence the term Orient yourself), to a map of the world created by Facebook connections Simon Garfield shows how maps and map making have been central to  human knowledge and development.

About On the Map Why the World Looks the Way it Does

From Mappa Mundi to Google Maps - the bestselling Just My Type author turns his gaze to maps. Maps fascinate us. They chart our understanding of the world and they log our progress, but above all they tell our stories.

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