maps

The blog Strange Maps chronicles various and sundry maps found online and around the world. Today's find is Europa Polyglota, published in 1730 by Gottfried Hensel. The map itself attempts to show the concordances and differences between all the languages spoken in Europe by spelling out the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer in each of them.

Meet Petrus Plancius's books, manuscripts and religion, time, 1600's. Melville's captains of the Pequod are entirely sophisticated worldly men. My beef with them is their callous indifference to the wholesale slaughter of whales as if their existence was problematic. Such perspective reached even to Dutch slave traders. Only on the side the slaves were able to elicit compassion whereas whales/

“Unlike calendars and telephone books, maps combine form, function and fantasy, a potent blend.” Potent enough for cartography to become a popular subject for books. Here’s a look at nine volumes featuring maps of varying kinds and descriptions…much easier to deal with than the ones in your glove compartment.

In addition to being a book geek, I am a map geek. I have a container full of acquired maps from various travels, including transit maps. For urban transit freaks like me comes the perfect book: Transit Maps of the World: The World's First Collection of Every Urban Train Map on Earth, by Mark Ovenden. Each map is accompanied by a brief history. Someone buy this for me, please?