Why we still need paper maps
Jerry Gretzinger has been mapping an imaginary world for 35 years, and he’s not about to stop now. Gretzinger’s map began with doodles drawn out of boredom. Now, it consists of thousands of panels of paint, pen and collage depicting the swirling oceans, cities and land masses of an imaginary world.
Image courtesy of Jerry Gretzinger
“The map is 55 feet across at least, at this point. I spent hours on the phone with him trying to understand why he makes this map, and I don’t think I do,” said Betsy Mason, co-author of the 2018 book All Over the Map: A Cartographic Odyssey. “But I love that he does it.”
In their book, Mason and her co-author Greg Miller explore more than 200 maps from all points in history and all across the planets. (A few even dip into imaginary worlds, like the Death Star plans from the Star Wars movies!)
Images courtesy of Becky Hale, National Geographic and Betsy Mason
In an interview with the PBS NewsHour, Mason discussed how maps of all kinds help people understand the ways in which people, places and ideas are connected. The conversation has been edited for length.
Maps are meant to show a relationship, to lay it out on a page, but some maps in the book actually prompted a discovery. How do people uncover new things using maps?
A few that come to mind right away are the maps made by geologists right after the 1906 earthquake [in San Francisco]. By mapping the damage and comparing it to the geology, they were able to discover for the first time that the geology that underlies a structure is a big factor in the risk that it has [for collapsing]. We didn’t understand that before.
Image courtesy of David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries
Maps can also be misleading. What can we learn from misinterpreted maps?
Many people will probably have heard about John Snow’s map of the cholera epidemic in 1850 in SoHo [a neighborhood in London]. Well, there was another physician who did a much more detailed map that included things like elevation contours.
His conclusion was that the old miasmatic theory of disease was in fact correct. It looked to him like there were more cases of cholera in the low-lying areas of Oxford, England-- and that the areas that were on a little bit of topography, where of course there would be more wind cleaning out the “noxious air,” had fewer cases.
Image courtesy of Princeton University Library
What he didn’t realize is that they also had a different water source -- wells, as opposed to the contaminated rivers.
What do you think people can take away from this book?
We hope people discover that maps are a really interesting way to explore the world, to explore history and imagination, or design, or culture or politics.
Maps can take you places that you wouldn’t think to go.
All images appear in the book All Over the Map by Betsy Mason and Greg Miller, published by National Geographic in October, 2018.
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