248 p., maps, illustrations

I found Wood’s literary style somewhat cumbersome. However, this book is essential for the philosophical and earnest cartographer. It discusses not only the history of maps but their social meaning. For example, what is the significance and intent of a county map that runs borders through Indian reservations? Denis Wood goes deep into the social contribution made by cartographers. ( )

Mapping philosophy with a twist of curmudgeonliness, parsing cartography from the top down: the power structure, the agendas, the symbology, the unstated. You get a healthy dose of mapmaking semiotics, which is not necessarily a bad thing unless you never want to see the words "signified" and "signifier" again as long as you live. But I like Denis Wood's take on things, and the chapter where he recreates a child's cognitive evolution of hillsign making, including unpacking the way landmasses are portrayed in The Little Engine That Could, Millions of Cats, and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, are worth the price of admission right there. Wood can get a bit didactic, but that's not always a bad thing, and his skepticism is by and large healthy. Even if he does punctuate like a 12-year-old girl, this is a very readable and entertaining treatise. ( )

I really enjoyed this--the sociology and semiotics of maps was not something I every really thought about before.
The guy's writing style is kind of entertaining--he has this habit of using a lot of ellipses and. . .italics. Which gives you the impression that he is deeply. . .stoned. ( )

Denis Wood takes us into a place most are never aware exists, as if to give us the world through the eyes of a map. Oh yes, we read about projections and scales and the minutia that seasons the conversation of professional cartographers. But more, we also are brought (dragged if reluctant) to the realization that every map has an opinion, a point of view. He doesn't stop there. He continues until his point is made that everyman, in a map making world, is or ought to be, a map maker.

He demonstrates the realities that could not exist in the absence of maps like of property lines, taxation districts and voting rights. He asks, given every map has a point of view, whose interest does it serve? "The Power of Maps" strips maps we have known all our lives of their cloak of scientific objectivity. Maps have the power to change our world through the way we see our world.

Note: Mr. Wood is not ashamed of his vocabulary - keep your dictionary nearby or risk missing some important meaning! ( )