Ben Waber reviewed Cartography by Matthew H. Edney
An Inside-Baseball View of Cartography
3 stars
This is a very academic book, for better or worse. Edney works through the history of the field of cartography, breaking up the different views of the field and its work and disentangling it from the common conflation with mapmaking. Much of the book assumes some familiarity with the field and the important concept that maps and mapping are inherently linked with society and politics, so if you're interested in more introductory texts you should look elsewhere. Beyond that, for the non-expert reader sometimes Edner goes into too much depth, which if I were writing a paper on the topic I would appreciate but makes it harder to read this book cover to cover. If, instead, you're looking for a book to occasionally peruse when you want to learn more about a specific topic, this could be a good book to pick up
This is a very academic book, for better or worse. Edney works through the history of the field of cartography, breaking up the different views of the field and its work and disentangling it from the common conflation with mapmaking. Much of the book assumes some familiarity with the field and the important concept that maps and mapping are inherently linked with society and politics, so if you're interested in more introductory texts you should look elsewhere. Beyond that, for the non-expert reader sometimes Edner goes into too much depth, which if I were writing a paper on the topic I would appreciate but makes it harder to read this book cover to cover. If, instead, you're looking for a book to occasionally peruse when you want to learn more about a specific topic, this could be a good book to pick up