In the article “Your World Map is Wrong. Like, Really, Really Wrong”, the author starts off by naming the weakness of the Mercator projection, which was drawn by Gerardus Mercator in 1569. It is said that the Mercator projection is not to scale, and the location of each country is different from what the Mercator projection taught scholars. For example, it gives obvious situations such as the comparison between the size of Africa and the size of Greenland. On the Mercator projection, these two appear to have around the same land mass, however, in reality, Africa is about 14 times larger than Greenland. It then continues the article with the fact that the Mercator projection is heavily influenced by imperialist power that occured in the past. …show more content…
Arno Peters. Following this topic, the author announces that all Boston schools will start adopting the Gall-Peters projection, hoping to decrease the chance of future generations receiving false insights on the world. After showing a video clip explaining the details of how the Gall-Peters projection operated, the author went on explaining how size is seen in people's minds. It is said that the smaller the object is, the less important people see it, or weigh it in their minds. This explains the reason behind the size of Europe on the Mercator projection compared to the size of Africa on the Mercator projection. Both continents were very off scale, with Africa being smaller than its actual size and Europe larger than its actual size. Lastly, the author explains that the misunderstanding of maps extend further than just the education that is given at school, even Google maps is stuck with the Mercator
“Longitudes and Attitudes”, written by Thomas Friedman, is a collection of columns, broken by September 11th’s great catastrophe and including material from his diary. The book displays his outstanding strengths as a commentator along with a few weaknesses.
Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History by historian David Christian explores a “modern creation myth” (2). Christian takes his readers from the big bang to modern day in a technical and historical narrative. He believes that big history is a new, yet important, area of history ignored by historians. Christian tells us big history is “a coherent story about the past on many different scales, beginning, literally, with the origins of the universe and ending in the present day” (2). The strength in Christian’s argument is in that he carefully takes his readers through each stage in history, much like a textbook, using charts, graphs, pictures, and the language for each area, like astronomy or biology. However, Christian’s goal is not complete. Christian, at multiple points, tells his readers there are many more details and theories that surround any one of his given subjects. Although his book is a great overall coverage for a topic as large as big history, his readers may wonder if such the idea of big history is a good one.
Beginning in the 1600s, one of the main concepts for England, France, and Spain at the time was mercantilism. These were the three most powerful and blooming countries at the time. Starting from the earliest years as the late 1500s, and continuing on, all three countries were soon to battle for claim of the new land. Only one country could triumph. Despite success, even the strongest can become the weakest.
Like the Arabs, the Europeans sometimes let their religion come between them and the truth. The best example of this is what Boorstin refers to as the “Great Interruption,” a time in the Middle Ages where theological, rather than geographical, accuracy was prioritized in mapmaking. Rather than continuing the work of Ptolemy and refining his rectangular coordinate system, cartographers “spent their energies embroidering a neat, theologically appealing picture of what was already known, or was supposed to be known.” (Boorstin, 100) Maps depicted the world as a circular disc divided into three parts, the three parts being the continents of Asia, Africa, and Europe, separated by a T-shaped flow of water. Jerusalem was always in the center of the maps; the justification came from a verse in Ezekiel saying that God had placed Jerusalem in the midst of the nations, which was interpreted literally. Allowing Christian dogma to determine the shape of the earth was a major failing in Boorstin’s eyes; nevertheless, the episode was only an “interruption,” and Europe eventually resumed discovery. Firstly, Boorstin credits the west for the modern clock and calendar. Although earlier versions of clocks from other parts of the world are mentioned, the author focuses primarily on the contributions of westerners to its development. When missionary
Ken Jennings was a map nerd from a young age himself, you will not be surprised to learn, even sleeping with an old creased atlas at the side of his pillow, most kids his age were cuddling with a trusted blanket- Jennings was not. As he travels the world meeting people of kindred spirits--map librarians, publishers, geocachers, and the engineers behind google maps. Now that technology and geographic unknowing is increasingly insulting us from the space and land around us, we are going to be needing these people more than ever. Mapheads are the ones who always know exactly where they are and...
In contrary to America's earlier beliefs, however, the race for expansion became more of a global competition than that of controlling the surrounding lands. Other countries were quickly scooping the remaining uncontrolled territories up, and America felt that they needed to stake their clam in imperialism around the world. The cartoon presented in document "A" shows how all the European countries were picking away at the lands still open for taking. In addition to the sense of "catching up" with the other nations around the world. America also felt that they were more powerful than ever, with the addition of an improving navy, turning their attention to the seas for conquer. During the earlier attempts of expansion, America had virtually no navy, which made oversea conquest out of their reach, leaving them only the surrounding areas for taking.
So what exactly is a geographical perspective, well according to Penn state “A geographic perspective is a way of looking at and understanding the world. When
2 In thus contextualizing the action of the poem, the Gawain-poet subtly challenges the centrality of Camelot. The poet zooms in from Troy to Rome and finally to England, thus placing Arthur (named in the second stanza) and Camelot (introduced in the third) quite literally at the edge of the map. The late thirteenth-century Mappa Mundi, which eventually found its way to the cathedral at Hereford, in western England near the Gawain-poet's Welsh origin, is typical of medieval presentations of the world. Oriented with east at the top, it depicts the land mass of the northern hemisphere in a circle, with Jerusalem at its center, Asia at the top, Africa to the right, and Europe to the left; England and Wales are placed at the bottom left of the map, wedged between continental Europe and the schematically represented Atlantic Ocean.3 Like maps of this type, the Gawain-poet situates Camelot at the distant margin of the world known to Trojans or Romans through his tour through the poem's first stanza.
Nisbett, R. E. (2003). The geography of thought: Why we think the way we do. New York: Free Press.
Until the 1950s, Atlases were mostly comprised of maps that simply show space and place. However in 1953, the World Geo-Graphic Atlas, published by Walter Paepcke’s Container Corporation of America (CCA) with Herbert Bayer, changed people’s notion of what maps look like and what information they contain. Bayer believed, that maps were “a record of time and perhaps even a tool of prognostication.” By the use of Isotypes (International System of Typographic Picture Education), Bayer created an atlas that is universal, therefore allowed viewers to understand complex data more clearly and easily.
Historical geographer JB Harley wrote an essay on Map Deconstruction in 1989, in which Harley argues that a map is more than just a geographical representation of an area, his theory is that we need to look at a map not just as a geographical image but in its entire context. Harley points out that by an examination of the social structures that have influenced map making, that we may gain more knowledge about the world. The maps social construction is made from debate about what it should show. Harley broke away from the traditional argument about maps and examined the biases that govern the map and the map makers, by looking at what the maps included or excluded. Harley’s “basic argument within this essay is that we should encourage an epistemological shift in the way we interpret the nature of cartography.” Therefore Harley’s aim within his essay on ‘Deconstructing the Map’ was to break down the assumed ideas of a map being a purely scientific creation.
Strengths: Visual perception analysis jumps out of the box of macro-scale analysis of city and highlights the importance of human’s perspective and cognition in space perceiving process, which criticizes the trend studying cities with too much emphasis on the figure-ground relationship. What’s more, in this method, visual perception factors are taken into consideration when evaluating and analyzing urban space. Human experience in the space is emphasized and regarded as important as mental map, which is more real and concrete.
Geographical concepts have been traced back to ancient days, geography is defining as the scientific study of the location of people and activity across earth and reasons for their distribution. It asks where and why things are where they are. Geographers organizes materials by the places they are located, thus being they have concluded that what happens in one place affects what happens in another place and can further affect conditions in the near future. Like any other subject geography has its own language and knowledge for better understanding of its concepts. Thinking geographically means learning the language, we need both geographical vocabulary and grammar in order to do this. Geography has concepts that enables us to have geographical
The Hereford World Map was once looked down on as being “inaccurate” and a “monstrosity” but today it is regarded as “a work of art embodying many aspects of religious and secular life in the Mid...
3. Blij, H.J. de and Peter O. Muller. Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts 2000 Ninth Edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2000.