Comprado no Esri UC 2023

Note: I bought the second edition of this book before the 22-year-more-recent 3rd edition was released -- which I did not learn existed until I was all but done with the 2nd edition (thanks Amazon?). However, I had access to the 3rd edition through Scribd, so I read the updated last three chapters. I did lightly skim the earlier chapters and they looked mostly unchanged. So this review will be mostly of the 2nd edition, but I will say something about the new chapters of the 3rd edition.

The opening chapters that discuss the conventions and compromise of cartography were my favorite. Maps must necessarily distort reality. At a fundamental level, they are scaled representations of reality that must represent the world through symbols. They cannot show everything so the map maker must choose what to show based on the purpose of the map. They generally aim for accuracy, but that is within constraints. For example, if a road and railroad lie right next to each other, one or both lines may be slightly offset to allow both to be shown.

Many of the remaining chapters talk about ways that maps might be deceiving. The content of these chapters are good, but I'll admit that the "How to Lie with" framing is not one that resonates with me particularly well. I'd much rather have the author play it straight. That said, the framing was mostly subdued enough to not be too distracting.

A map can deceive through cartographic blunders, both from the cartographer and from unintentional sources like print quality. Maps used for advertising and maps used for political propaganda both capitalize on the ability of maps to evoke emotions, especially through the choice of imagery and color. Development maps, such as for neighborhood construction, aim to be more objective but can also try to evoke emotional reactions to use a point, such as showing trees as large and full grown.

Defense maps can be state secrets -- even just knowing where a country is interested in can reveal information -- but they can also be used to spread disinformation to the enemy (although this is harder now that high resolution current imagery is more available). Government maps are not actively deceptive, but they do have to make choices and compromises to create huge numbers of detailed maps on a budget.

My favorite chapter in the later part of the book was on data maps. When maps are representing aggregated data, the choice of how to aggregate the data can make a huge difference in the message delivered. For example, in single dimensional data, the number of buckets used, the boundaries between buckets, and the geographic boundaries of the buckets can result in dramatically different maps. Thinking about the data before placing it on a map, such as thinking about categorizations of are already recognized and looking for underlying, non-geographic patterns in the data, can help make a more honest data map.

The chapter on color was also interesting although the digression into color theory seemed largely unnecessary. The main takeaway is that color is better used to convey category. Using color for scale tends to be ambiguous since colors do not have a natural ordering. That doesn't mean scales should be greyscale, but scales should be a one or two color gradient rather than having a scale with many colors. A map specific challenge with color is that color also can be used to convey the nature of the natural landscape such as green for vegetation and blue for water. The symbolic use of color must be chosen carefully to compliment rather than conflict with this representative association.

The old chapter on multimedia maps was completely obsolete and is what was replaced in the 3rd edition. The 3rd edition adds additional chapters on image maps, prohibitive cartography, and fast maps. Image maps are maps created from overhead imagery, and Monmonier notes them as one of the huge innovations in maps in the twenty-first century. They are complementary to line maps: they contain more details (trees!) but they can be harder to interpret (where is the road through the trees?). The chapter on prohibitive cartography discusses how maps that encode boundaries become the source of truth for what those boundaries are; this can be a source of contention.

Fast maps is Monmonier's term for maps that change or are disseminated quickly. This includes fast spreading memes. It also includes interactive maps. Interactive maps can provide ways for users to inquire into the data more deeply and can move through many levels of detail. In fact, Monmonier brings up a suspiciously familiar 22 levels of detail. (Suspicious because that's what Google Maps uses, even though it's not mentioned by name in that section.)

Overall, this book was interesting, but I tend to be highly interested in maps. I don't have a good sense for how it would read to someone who is casually interested in maps. Probably interesting? But overall, the "How to lie" framing combined with many of the examples being rather dated (even in the 3rd edition, based on my skim) made the book less impactful than it might have been otherwise, so 3 stars overall. ( )

Great insight into how maps are inherently deceptive. There are some good reminders about errors due to binning. A bit dated w.r.t. digital maps. ( )

The book begins with the provocative and true statement that all maps lie--because all maps are of necessity simplifications of the things they represent. Mr. Monmonier then explains how to identify, understand, minimize and use the limitations to make more effective use of maps and the rhetorical opportunities they can provide. As the classic "How to Lie with Statistics," "How to Lie with Maps" is essential for anyone who does not wish to be deceived and who wishes to use the subject tools both honestly and effectively. ( )

Good introduction to the topic, but I already know this stuff, neither as specific nor as contemporary as I had hoped.

A worthy successor to the classic How to Lie with Statistics. Monmonier begins by pointing out that all maps, by necessity, tell lies, and proceeds to show us the different techniques of abstraction that can be used effectively to represent the truth-- or subverted to deceive the unwary. Most of the examples are quite clear, though toward the end of the book they begin to become more abstract and less gripping. ( )

Chuck left this around. It's a quick read about how maps necessarily bias the information they portray and how the design choices of mapmakers can clarify, confuse, or conceal (intentionally or not). Pretty basic stuff, and fairly dry. ( )

207 p.

The Loose World Of Mapmaking
by John Van Pelt

The Christian Science Monitor, September 18, 1991

- MARK MONMONIER, a Syracuse University geographer, says his book's principal goal is to dispel "cartographic mystique."
It does that and more, providing a lot of useful instruction about how "maps must be white lies but may sometimes become real lies." The essential elements of a map - scale, projection, symbols, generalization - are all sources of distortion, Monmonier explains.
He also provides tools for the map user to discern where normal cartographic license has slipped into cartographic laziness, propaganda, skulduggery, or worse.
The primary tool is a healthy skepticism. Any "single map is but one of an indefinitely large number of maps that might be produced ... from the same data." This learned, we respond with fresh respect to the elegance and exactitude of topographic survey plats, while we energetically question the map of the proposed housing project, the map depicting concentrations of anything, and that paragon of self-serving cartography, the advertising map.
In no case, however, is the mapped image equal to reality. Maps at small scales tend to be less detailed than those at large scales - the mapmaker has less room to illustrate features and hence must be more selective. But maps at large scales also suppress some details.
Monmonier gives a highly readable account of the daunting subject of projections. "No flat map can match the globe ... any map projection is a compromise solution," he writes.
He is at his most spirited as he debunks the Gall-Peters projection, which achieved fad status in the early 1970s among several world churches, UNESCO, and many in the media. According to Monmonier, organizations seduced by the map's apparently fairer treatment of less-developed nations missed out on better projections already in the literature that achieved the same goals.
Monmonier's catalog of variables in visual symbols - lines, dots, and shades used to denote towns, roads, states, and so on - reminds us that choices have been made for us by the mapmaker.
He fears the misapplication of personal computers, especially the ever-greater availability of color. He urges mapmakers, for example, to avoid using bright hues in portraying quantitative differences, but rather to use ordered gradations of gray; however eye-catching, the rainbow effect cannot be sorted efficiently, if at all, by users of the map.
Derivative maps are more prone to accidental error than the large-scale topographic maps supported by government bureaucracies. The author cites the American Automobile Assiciation's loss of Seattle from a United States road map in the 1960s and the omission of Ottawa from a prominent airline map of Canada. Other errors have prompted international incidents and turned around military battles.
Maps in advertising, development maps, tax maps, all get their due. Planning to appeal your assessment? Follow Monmonier's guide to selecting and presenting map data to support your claims.
Are you active in municipal government? You'll want to be able to see through permit applicants' tricks, like drawing trees around a planned structure in a rendering or dazzling with irrelevant detail. Not meant to be taken as a literal guide for your own shady deals, these chapters go right to applications where most folks handle maps.
A reading of this book will leave you much better defended against cheap atlases, shoddy journalism, unscrupulous advertisers, predatory special-interest groups, and others who may use or abuse maps at your expense.