Publisher's Synopsis
The Map Reader provides, for the first time, a single source of all the important literature on maps. It is a comprehensive and coherent edited compendium of key writing about the nature of mapping practices from the last hundred years. The editorial selection of fifty classic and thought provoking texts demonstrates how cartography works as a powerful representational form and also explores how different mapping practices have been conceptualised. Themes covered include paradigms, politics, people, aesthetics and technology. Excerpts are drawn from leading scholars and researchers in a range of cognate fields, including, cartography, architecture, art, media theory and graphic design. The editors provide original thematic essays that set the literature into intellectual context. The Map Reader is also illustrated with colour plates of significant maps and the all readings are helpfully integrated with a unified bibliography and comprehensive keyword and author index. The Map Reader will bring together in a single authoritative source classic and hard to find articles relating to mapping, and introduce the changing significance of the field by situating these pieces with carefully crafted interpretative essay from the editors.
