All Over the Map

This beautiful tome by WIRED alumni Betsy Mason and Greg Miller charts the fascinating history of cartography. The scores of maps in the book range from the whimsical (origins of meats supplied to Parisian butchers) to the political (North Dakota fracking sites) to the fantastical (Jerry Gretzinger's imaginary world). -Wired It'd be pretty difficult to review the breadth of maps in the book to give you a flavor even. Let's just say Mason and Miller have got you covered whatever your map vice is. So whether you like the painstaking detail of beautiful topographic maps, the imagination of celestial charts, the analytical representation of statistical data or the fantasy of the map of Westeros or the Death Star then there's plenty in this book to feast on. -Kenneth Field, Cartonerd blog Mapping the cosmos is just one of the topics addressed in this entertaining, colorful look at historical maps and the stories behind them. Space fans will revel in the tale surrounding a century's worth of road atlases for Mars' (non-existent) canals, There are also entries for the history of moon maps, the solar system maps that NASA's Pioneer and Voyager missions provided for the aliens, and the fictional Death Star diagrams. But wait ... there's much, much more. Co-authors Betsy Mason and Greg Miller provide a cornucopia of cartography that spans subjects ranging from a street map for ancient Rome and a 15th-century guide to the parallels between medieval maps of Britain and contemporary charts of the Seven Kingdoms in Game of Thrones. -GeekWire Science journalists Greg Miller and Betsy Mason took their obsession with maps--historical, geologic, science-y, even of other worlds--and translated that into one of the most beautiful and interesting compendiums of stories I've ever read. The book is filled with over 200 maps, some famous, like maps of the ocean floor, some obscure, like a geologic map of the moon, which is easily one of the visually craziest maps I've ever seen. I can't recommend it highly enough. -Kishore Hari, Inquiring Minds podcast One of the most beautiful and fascinating books I've ever seen. -Mary Eileen Williams, Feisty Side of Fifty podcast