The Power of Maps

Denis Wood

Paperback
Paperback
October 16, 1992
ISBN 9780898624939
Price: $31.00
248 Pages
Size: 6" x 9"
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Rethinking the Power of Maps, a follow-up to this book, was published May 2010.
This volume ventures into terrain where even the most sophisticated map fails to lead—through the mapmaker's bias. Denis Wood shows how maps are not impartial reference objects, but rather instruments of communication, persuasion, and power. Like paintings, they express a point of view. By connecting us to a reality that could not exist in the absence of maps—a world of property lines and voting rights, taxation districts and enterprise zones—they embody and project the interests of their creators. Sampling the scope of maps available today, illustrations include Peter Gould's AIDS map, Tom Van Sant's map of the earth, U.S. Geological Survey maps, and a child's drawing of the world. THE POWER OF MAPS was published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Design.