83 books like How to Lie with Maps

In this beautiful book, Maier guides her readers through the parallel development of Rome (imperial city, Holy See, thriving center of art and intellectualism) with the evolution of mapmaking.

I like the clear way that she shows how the changing city helped inform transitions in how and why maps are made. For example, medieval maps of Rome forefront of the city’s five churches, while downplaying other features, and give the cloistered monk (and modern reader) the opportunity to trace an imagined pilgrimage (I spent many childhood hours with the family atlas imagining my own journeys to faraway lands).

Only in the 19th century, when travel for pleasure becomes widespread, do maps of Rome (and elsewhere), advertising their sponsors, become more utilitarian, enabling tourists to find their own ways, and supplying cheap souvenirs. 

I loved how this book reads like a thriller—a David and Goliath thriller—in which a lowly clockmaker competed against the foremost scientists of his era and won—and even after he had won, he had to fight dastardly efforts by the elites of his day to deprive him of his prize and hard-earned fame.

The book spoke to my fascination with how things get made and why craftsmanship is important. But it also spoke to my concern with class and how those in power can rig things to their benefit, with, in this case, the happy result that good triumphed over evil.

On the Map provides a whistlestop tour of the stories behind some of the best-known maps in history (including the Hereford Mappa Mundi, John Snow’s Broad Street cholera outbreak map, and Harry Beck’s London Underground map) as well as many less well-known but no less-fascinating tales of fantastic maps.

I love this book simply because it is a joyful celebration of all things maps and mapping: a compendium of compelling, cheerful, and often incredible stories that provide a glimpse of not only the immense variety and complexity maps, but also their inherent fun.

It is that fun which I think first attracted me to maps and mapping, and still sparks joy for me upon encountering new maps and mapping innovations today.

No list of books about maps and map making would be complete without the inclusion of an atlas. Nor could any such list be complete without reflecting on the remarkable mapping achievements of First Peoples around the world. 

My favorite atlas is the Macquarie Atlas of Indigenous Australia. It is meticulously researched, beautifully presented, and richly narrated. The atlas explores the concepts, technologies, and deep history of mapping by Australian First Peoples and charts the more recent devastating impacts of colonization on Indigenous Australians.

But it also celebrates the rich and vibrant culture of today’s First Peoples in Australia; their incredible diversity of language, culture, art, and science; and their unwavering connection to the land where I live today. 

Maps are powerful, useful, functional objects. But mapmaking is also an art, with a long history and tradition of design. That indelible connection between the map room and the art gallery is what I enjoy most in this book.

Each map in this selection from the Bodleian Library at Oxford University is accompanied by a thoughtful reflection on the story behind the map and its impact. But it is the maps themselves, reproduced in rich color on high-density, fine-art-book quality paper, that are the main attractions here. I can, and have, spent many hours lost in an exploration of the flourishes, nooks, and curiosities of an individual map.

Immersing myself in an artful map from this book is to be transported to another time and place that is simultaneously endlessly strange and yet comfortingly familiar.  

2500 years ago, Pytheas, a clever Greek explorer, figured out latitude.

While there has always been a concept of longitude, it proved impossible to pinpoint, until... Sobel and Andrewes engagingly unravel the cipher of longitude that was cracked by the plucky John Harrison (he created the right tool, a clock that kept accurate time at sea: why is this important? Read the book!).

Convinced that the solution could only be astronomical, the scientific community was not amused. It was a dramatic conflict between the skeptical Board of Longitude (probably also jealous) and the skilled workaday carpenter-turned-clockmaker whose solution to navigation’s oldest puzzle was banausic.

In the end, our hero, the underdog, prevails (even if it took 250 years for Harrison to receive the respect he so richly deserved and earned).

To my mind, the British Ordnance Survey Maps are the gold standard: these super-detailed maps are my most highly treasured souvenirs of a research trip in my graduate school days.

From the map I recognized every hillock and bend in the road I passed on my Hadrian’s Wall hike. With an Ordnance Survey Map, you know exactly where you are in the UK. Hewitt nimbly relates that story, weaving together history and science, nationalism, and cartography.

Besides this being an important and underappreciated slice of cartographic history, the book is simply a joy to read. When I look at my Ordnance Survey Maps now, I don’t just see marks on a two-dimensional surface, I see the faces of those creative and visionary men and recognize their Herculean efforts. 

Finally, you can’t talk about maps and not talk about sea monsters.

Want to buy a sea monster? Van Duzer tells you how! Given my professional (and personal) interest in cartography, water, sailing, and animals, this book absolutely had to appear on my “Best Books” list. It is very richly illustrated (115 color images), but is not simply a picture book.

Van Duzer’s narrative is engaging and informative. He explores terrifying and whimsical marine creatures that peopled Medieval and Renaissance waters (many are imaginary; some are more or less based on actual sea animals). And he situates them within the broader context of the individual maps, their impact, and marine biology.

Van Duzer thus helps his audience read European Medieval and Renaissance Maps more fully and richly. 

Often overlooked on detective fiction lists, Lady Audley’s Secret is a hidden gem. My favorite Victorian detective novel, I didn’t discover the book until grad school, and since have taught it in numerous British lit courses. When Robert Audley becomes curious about the beautiful, young bride of his uncle, Michael Audley, he starts investigating her past. He finds surprising ties to his friend George Talbot, who, years earlier, abandoned his young wife and son to seek his fortune in Australia. What I love about this book is how Braddon plays with Victorian anxieties—particularly preoccupations with the unconventional means a woman might go through to escape unhappiness. 

I love this book because it’s a story about ordinary people. But it’s a true story.

It reads like a fairytale: a peasant, Arnaud du Tilh, is accused of impersonating another man who had abandoned his wife several years before. Arnaud seems to have outwitted the judges until the errant husband returns condemning the impostor to death.

I like this story because it helps to identify with men and women in the past, who in many respects, are just like us. It’s also a piece of great history reconstructed from original trial records. Davis is a great writer.