The Power of Maps

by Wood, Denis

• ISBN13: 9780898624939
• ISBN10: 0898624932
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1992-10-16
• Publisher: The Guilford Press

Summary

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.

Author Biography

Denis Wood, PhD, is an independent scholar living in Raleigh, North Carolina. He lectures widely and is the author of a dozen books and over 150 papers. From 1974 to 1996, he taught in the School of Design at North Carolina State University. In 1992, he curated the Power of Maps exhibition for the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design (remounted at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, in 1994), for which he wrote the book The Power of Maps. His other books include Rethinking the Power of Maps; Making Maps, Third Edition (coauthored with John Krygier); and Weaponizing Maps (coauthored with Joe Bryan).

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(3)
Maps Work by Serving Interests	4	(24)
A Reality Beyond Our Reach	4	(3)
Maps Make the Past and Future Present	7	(3)
Maps Link the Territory with What Comes with It	10	(2)
Maps Enable Our Living	12	(4)
One Map Use-Many Ways of Living	16	(1)
Maps Construct-Not Reproduce-the World	17	(5)
Every Map Has an Author, a Subject, a Theme	22	(4)
Suspended Between Faith and Doubt	26	(2)
Maps Are Embedded in a History They Help Construct	28	(20)
Growth, Development, History	28	(2)
Maps Themselves Don't Grow (or Develop)	30	(2)
But Mapping and Mapmaking Do	32	(2)
To Live Map-Immersed in the World	34	(4)
Some Societies Are Bigger Than Others	38	(1)
Some Societies Are More Developed	39	(3)
Out Histories-Entwined-Are Different	42	(6)
Every Map Shows This...But Not That	48	(22)
The Dividing Up of the Reality	51	(3)
The Code Between the Object and Its Image	54	(2)
The Mathematical Transformation of the Object	56	(5)
``Night and Day, You Are the One''	61	(2)
``Blue Skies, Shining On Me''	63	(1)
``All Summer Long''	63	(1)
What Is the Map For?	64	(6)
The Interest the Map Serves Is Masked	70	(25)
The Naturalization of the Cultural	76	(2)
The Culturalization of the Natural	78	(1)
The Wanaque Topographic Quadrangle	79	(2)
Shows Only Selected Features	81	(1)
The Wanaque Quadrangle Only Shows ``Permanent'' Features	81	(3)
The Wanaque Quadrangle Only Shows Cheap Features	84	(1)
Cheap Maps Are Silent	85	(2)
Legible Features on the Wanaque Quadrangle	87	(2)
What Are We Looking for in New Jersey?	89	(1)
We're Looking for Iron	89	(2)
Suddenly the Map Looks Different	91	(4)
The Interest Is Embodied in the Map in Signs and Myths	95	(48)
Legends	96	(5)
Myths	101	(7)
Codes	108	(3)
Ten Cartographic Codes	111	(5)
Intrasignification	116	(1)
Iconic Codes	117	(5)
Linguistic Codes	122	(2)
Tectonic Codes	124	(1)
Temporal Codes	125	(5)
Presentational Codes	130	(2)
Sign Functions	132	(1)
Elemental Signs	133	(4)
Sign Systems	137	(1)
Synthesis	138	(2)
Presentation	140	(3)
Each Sign Has a History	143	(39)
A Brief History of the Hillsign	145	(9)
Hillsigning Among Contemporary Americans	154	(4)
The Sequence in Which Kids Acquire Hillsigns Parallels That in Which They Were Acquired in Our History of Mapmaking	158	(1)
The Mastery of Hillsigning in Contemporary Kids	159	(12)
The Hillsigning of the Contemporary Child in Context	171	(2)
The Development of Hillsigns	173	(5)
Hillsigns of the Future	178	(4)
The Interest the Map Serves Can Be Yours	182	(14)
Anybody Can Make a Map	184	(1)
Maps Are Moments in the Process of Decision-Making	185	(3)
Maps Are Heavy Responsibilities	188	(4)
Maps Empower ... By Working	192	(4)
Notes	196	(47)
Index	243