How to Lie with Maps

A subject of fascination to me, sitting at the crossover of geography, politics, social science, maths and behavioural psychology. The work has apparently been a standard academic text for many years now, as noted in its third edition. The book was unfortunately made aware to me in the context of Trump's decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico. Monmonier's key point is that the intelligent viewer should approach all maps with a healthy degree of scepticism, since they show only what the mapmaker is telling you. These choices may be a function of practicality (how to translate a three-dimensional world into 2D?), ineptitude (poor cartography, time and money constraints), politics (per Trump, propaganda, misleading enemies, soft power projection, etc.), or some combination of all of the above. Much of what Monmonier highlights is supported by visuals, and there were only a few occasions where I found the text overly academic. I appreciated the author's dry and mordant wit; a very relevant book, and this third edition addresses mapping in the digital age too. N/R.

By Mark Monmonier