Dimensions
263 x 338 x 26mm
A fascinating and richly illustrated exploration of the most glorious and world-changing maps ever made. CARTOGRAPHIA offers a stunning array of 200 of the most beautiful, important and fascinating maps in existence, all garnered from the world's largest cartographic collection at the Library of Congress. These maps show how our idea of the world has shifted and grown over time, and their accompanying text introduce the reader to an exciting new way of reading maps as travelogues, revealing a living history from the earliest of man's imaginings about planet Earth to our current attempts at charting cyberspace. Among the rare gems included in the book are the Waldseemuller Map of the World from 1507, the first to include the designation America; pages from the Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of 1570, considered the first modern atlas; rare maps from Africa, Asia and Oceania; William Faulkner's hand-drawn 1936 map of the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi; and even a map of the Human Genome. In an oversized format, with gorgeous four-colour reproductions throughout, CARTOGRAPHIA will appeal to collectors, historians and gift-book buyers.
