How to Lie with Maps: 08/19/21

How to Lie with Maps by Mark Monmonier is in its third edition as of 2018. It's a nonfiction primer on how to make good choices when designing a map and how to spot the limitations of a map. The book covers both traditional methods of cartography as well as computer aided approaches.

The book starts off with key concepts: scale and projection. For global maps the big question is which piece of the planet gets the distorted. For smaller maps, it's what information gets left off to aid readability.

For traditionally drawn maps designed for grayscale printing, this book is solid. Where it falls short is in its discussion of color and computer design. There is mention of abuses of color as well as a barebones introduction to color theory. There's also some advice on avoiding certain computer pitfalls.

But among the illustrated examples, there are no color prints. As color is such a tricky design element in maps (or anything else that needs to be read and understood by a huge range of people) there should be color examples among the numerous illustrations. In the third edition there are none.

Four stars

Comments (0)