John Wilford Noble’s The Mapmakers is a terrific source of stories and information about famous mapmakers and the mapping techniques of the past. A good deal of the history is related through biographical details about the “makers” and these are nearly always interesting and even dramatic. It was a profession that attracted adventurous souls. Those souls were needed, too. If we had remained obliged to rely on “learned Europeans,” we’d have been telling each other, for example, that mountains “categorically” can’t be higher than about 25,000 feet. Hear that, Everest, K2, Kangchenjunga, and the rest?

As mapmaking became more highly technological, which is described in the latter part of the book, adventure is less prominently part of the story. If technical text makes your heart sing, why, be sure to read the entire book. If you’d honestly just rather watch cricket, then stick to the earlier chapters for the more personal drama of mapmaking.

I read the revised edition, dated 2001. Obviously, a lot has changed since then. This isn’t the right book if your focus is the more recent quite remarkable developments. ( )

Contains lots of interesting information, more than I really needed about cartographic and surveying techniques. The early-age historical chapters were very informative, and the later modern-age ones a little drier.

Wilford uses a straight-forward narrative, packed with detail rather than the repetition and faux-suspense that is unfortunately so prevalent in the recent History Channel productions. ( )

I have to remember not to pick up books that look interesting without researching them. I wanted to like this so bad...but it's totally boring. ( )

This is a wonderful summary of the history of map mapping, from the time before Ptolomey through to mapping the oceans and the universe. It provides another insight into the more well known stories of exploration such as Columbus, Cook and Flinders. Most interesting is the description of the hard work put into mapping the world, the struggles with determining the size of the earth, the elusive measurement of longitude, and the politics of mapping making.

I read the second edition (2001) and it too is already quite dated. Therefore personal GPS systems are covered as the 'latest thing', whilst digital cameras are Google Maps are of course missing. Could the author have foreseen that in 2011 anyone with access to a computer can be involved in mapping the world, for example by geo-tagging images?

One gripe I have is that the printing process has not done justice to the illustrations and images. One wishes for high resolution images, perhaps printed on gloss stock. What are presented are very poor reproductions. Perhaps a coffee-table book just containing old maps would be a good companion book.

This book is well written. It is well structured with it's chapters, allowing the author to cover the field by subject matter, and still maintain a sensible chronological order. ( )

The revised edition of John Noble Wilford's The Mapmakers (Vintage, 2001) updates the original edition of 1981, bringing the history of cartography and cartographers into the twenty-first century (of course given the current pace of technological changes, it's certain that it won't take twenty years before more revisions are warranted). This is probably the best single-volume history of cartographic endeavor, and most specifically the best treatment of those Wilford calls "the great pioneers of mapmaking."

From the earliest period of human history, we've been making maps: some good, some bad, some grossly inaccurate. Wilford surveys the historical trends in cartography and profiles those responsible for the greatest breakthroughs (and the greatest blunders). Eratosthenes and Ptolemy, Columbus and the Cassinis, Frémont and John Wesley Powell, all get their due here. Wilford tracks the involvement of governments in cartographic pursuits, and offers in-depth examinations of how changing technology (from aerial photography to laser imaging to GPS) has shaped the field.

While the majority of Wilford's text focuses on historical mapmaking and its difficulties, he also covers more recent efforts to map the still-hidden parts of our own planet (including the deep seas). In the final chapters, Wilford turns his gaze to the skies, focusing on the efforts to create useful maps of the moon, the local planets, the solar system, and even the universe.

Entirely readable and very nicely paced, this is an excellent introduction to the field, and the extensive list of references at the back will be very useful for anyone seeking further information (my one quibble is that there aren't footnotes referencing specific sources; I would have appreciated those).

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2009/07/book-review-mapmakers.html ( )