History of the World in 12 Maps
This post is about a book, a book review, and the discussion that the review sparked.
As I've mentioned before, I review books for Shelf Awareness for Readers. Mostly history, a little reference--and the occasional cookbook because writer does not live by history alone. Some of the books I receive for review are on subjects I'd never think to read on my own.* Others scream my name immediately. Guess which category A History of the World in Twelve Maps fell into?
Here's my review for Shelf Awareness:
Mapping is a basic instinct, argues Jerry Brotton: humans and animals alike use mapping procedures to locate themselves in space. Map-making, on the other hand-- using graphic techniques to share spatial information-is an act of the human imagination. It is never objective; the map is not the territory. And maps of the world are more subjective than most, embodying the worldview of the culture that produced them. In A History of The World in Twelve Maps, Brotton, a British history professor, looks at twelve world maps, the people who created them, and what they tell us about the time and place in which they were made. In the process, he tells the reader a great deal about how we view the world today.
Beginning with Ptolemy's Geography and ending with the virtual maps of Google Earth, Brotton considers maps and geographical theory from Islamic Sicily and fifteenth century China as well as the more familiar worlds of medieval England and Renaissance Europe. He looks at different approaches to shared questions: how a map is oriented (north is not the universal answer), what scale to use, where the viewer stands in relation to the map and how to project a round earth on a flat surface. Along the way, he considers politics, religion, cosmology, mathematics, imperialism, scientific knowledge, and artistic license. Each map is unique; all have features in common.
A History of the World in Twelve Maps is global history in the most literal sense: twelve variations on a universal theme.
Normally I would simply re-post the review here in the Margins, with proper attribution to Shelf Awareness, and hope that it directed a few more readers to an excellent book. However, this review prompted some interesting responses from readers that I would like to share.
Graham Thatcher wrote to me with an idea about maps and perception, which he has given me permission to share:
…while teaching a persuasion course, I took a National Geographic Mercator map of the world, blocked out the names of countries, and hung it upside down on the board. We had been investigating how our individual "world views" develop and when confronted with an antipodal projection, our literal world view was unrecognizable.
I think this is brilliant and intend to try it as soon as we move into the new house, where I'll have a bigger office and a bit of wall space.
On a similar note, fellow historian, and long-time co-conspirator, Karin Wetmore sent me the following link to an interesting map/memory/perception project: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/01/what-you-get-when-30-people-draw-a-world-map-from-memory/282901/
What ideas do you have about turning the world--or at least our map of it--upside down?
* Being knocked off my usual paths occasionally is one of the intangible benefits of reviewing.
History on Display: Wonders of the 1893 World’s Fair
Last Sunday My Own True Love and I cocked a snook at cold and snow* and headed out to Chicago's Field Museum to see what we thought was an exhibit on the 1893 World's Fair, aka the Columbian Exposition. We had neglected to read the subtitle for the exhibit: "Opening the Vaults". As is often our experience, what we got was much more interesting than what we expected. We thought we were going to an exhibit on the relatively familiar story of how the fair was developed: financial panic, Ferris Wheel, Little Egypt, and all.** Instead we were introduced to changing ideas about natural history and the story of how the Columbian Exposition led to the creation of what is now the Field Museum.
After a brief introduction to the fair itself,***the exhibit went on to consider four types of knowledge exhibited at the fair: animal, vegetable, mineral, and cultural. Using objects from the Field's collections that have not been on display since 1893, the curators explained the cultural assumptions that shaped exhibits at the fair, how the exhibits developed into the Field's collection, changes in the relevant academic disciplines in the intervening 120 years, and how modern scholars use specimens exhibited at the fair to answer new questions . If that sounds dry, it's my fault. The exhibit itself is fascinating.
Here were some tidbits that had me reaching for my pen and notebook:
- The Columbian Exposition, like the American space program, produced lots of unexpected spin-offs. For example, the company that insured the fair was worried about whether the unprecedented use of electric light bulbs was safe, so the fair's organizers hired electrician William H Merrill to inspect the grounds. Building on his work on the fair, Merrill later founded Underwriters Laboratories (UL), a company that still tests and certifies the safety of electrical products.
- Prizes were awarded to exhibitors for innovative product development. One of the first place winners still flaunts its success: Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer.
- Two popular cereal products made their debut at the fair: Shredded Wheat and Cracker Jacks. Can you say "ends of the spectrum"?
- The fair organizers were interested in "economic botany". Many exhibits focused on plant products with economic potential, from raw indigo to cannabis seeds. Yes, you read that correctly. Cannabis seeds. As in pot.
- I was stunned to learn that Elmer Riggs, the Field Museum's first paleontologist, is credited with "removing 'brontosaurus' from the dinosaur vocabulary" ca 1903. Brontosaurus has certainly been part of my personal dinosaur vocabulary. (Thank you, Fred Flintstone.) A quick search revealed that the brontosaurus of popular culture was a mistake of the so-called Bone Wars in the early years of paleontology. Dang.
- Labrador Inuits who had been hired to demonstrate their way of life in one of the "native villages" were so outraged by the conditions provided by the fair's organizers that they sued the Fair, left the official village, and set up their own paid exhibit outside the Fair's gates.
Wonders of the 1893 World's Fair runs through September 7. It won't be traveling to another museum. If you're in the area, or if you're obsessed with the Columbian Exposition and willing to travel, it's well worth a visit.
*If you prefer your museum experience unhampered by other viewers, early Sunday morning is always a good choice. Early Sunday morning with blowing snow and falling temperatures is even better.
** Devil in the White City, anyone?
***Including the claim that the Columbian Exhibition is considered the greatest of the world's fairs. Personally I think the grand-daddy of international exhibitions, the Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851, has a good claim to that title.
Photographs courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Road Trip Through History: Museum of Memory and Human Rights
The Bombing of La Moneda (the Chilean equivalent of the White House) on September 11, 1973, by the Junta's Armed Forces.
My Own True Love and I went to Chile over the holidays for a family wedding and a spot of adventure. We set off knowing where we needed to be when and no idea about the details. We discovered strawberry juice, pisco sours, enormous holes in our knowledge of Chilean history, and the amazing kindness of strangers. We spent two nights in a cabin that looked like a hobbit hole, walked in the foothills of the Andes, and stayed up much later than we are used to.
Along the way we visited a truly powerful museum: the Museo de la Memoria et los Derechos Humanos (The Museum of Memory and Human Rights).
The museum documents the events of the military coup of September 11, 1973,* the subsequent abuses of the Pinochet years, the courage of those who stood against the regime, and the election in which Chile voted Pinochet out of power in 1988.** The exhibits are an assault on the senses, using contemporary film clips, music, photographs, and recordings. Photographs of the regime's victims "float" against a glass wall that is two-stories high. Interviews with survivors of the coup were fascinating; interviews with survivors of the government's human rights abuses were almost unbearable. A recording of President Allende's final speech, broadcast under siege from the presidential palace shortly before his death, was awe-inspiring. In short, the museum shows humanity at its best and its worst.
In many ways, the Museo de la Memoria resembles Holocaust museums we've visited, not only in its insistence on memory and celebration of survival, but in its message of "never again". A quotation from former Chilean president (and now president elect) Michelle Bachelet Jeria is engraved at the entrance that sums up the museum's purpose: "We are not able to change our past. The only thing that remains to us to learn from the experience. It is our responsibility and our challenge." Statements about and explanations of the universal declaration of human rights, passed by the United Nations in 1948, are interwoven throughout the historical exhibits.
I cannot say we had a fun morning. My Own True Love and I left the museum drained. We also were very pleased we made the effort. If you are lucky enough to have the chance to visit Chile, make the time to visit. If you don't see Chile in your future but would like to know more about Chile under the Pinochet regime, these two books come highly recommended: Andy Beckett's Pinochet in Piccadilly: Britain and Chile's Hidden History and Hugh O'Shaughnessy's Pinochet: The Politics of Torture. I haven't read either of them yet, but I'm putting them on my need-to-read list.
*The United States is not the only country to remember 9/11 with sadness.
**I don't know of any other instance in which a dictatorship allowed itself to be voted out of power. Do you?
Photograph courtesy of the Library of the Chilean National Congress