The Power and Politics of Maps

Abstract

A basic knowledge of how maps are planned and how they may be intended, that is, the politics of mapping, enables a map reader to gain the faculty of graphic literacy, and thereby an awareness of the power of maps. Maps are not only formal projections that net the world mathematically. The North-on-top convention, for world maps especially, probably originated with the Greek scientist-geographer Claudius Ptolemy. World maps with North at the top were easier to study. The most obviously "dynamic" of map symbols are the oriented, or directional, ones such as the concentric circles and arrows drawn on the German maps to indicate the pressures of Einkreisung constraint and the counterforces of a Durchbruch strategy. Not only Harrison's standard-projection maps but also his wonderful bird's-eye-view, or perspective, maps of the various theaters of Second World War demonstrated brilliantly the virtues of cartographic agility.

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