The paradox of place versus map

For many of us, maps and modern mapmaking devices such as the Global Positioning System offer beguiling images of the landscape -- but how often do we challenge these images? It’s a rare perspective that makes us realize the ways maps embody our behaviors, values and history -- yet omit many other details.

Van Noy examines this dilemma through the writings of four influential “mapmakers and surveyors”-- Henry David Thoreau, Clarence King, John Wesley Powell and Wallace Stegner -- who were greatly troubled by the paradox of place versus map.

In a way, these writers all ask the same question: What is it exactly that we map? Scholarly and insightful, this book pushes the reader to look through maps and ponder our behavior toward the land on a deeper level.

-- David Lukas