Reinventing the map collection: new journeys through (un)known worlds of London and America

P ublishing map collections in sophisticated hardcover books may appear an unimaginative project given so many similar projects in recent years. While the accessibility of all kinds of maps has become easier with the internet, the demand for map collections in book form seems to persist. With its mapping series, Black Dog Publishing has joined this trend. They started off in 2007 with Mapping London: making sense of the city, followed by books on England (Foxell 2008) and New York (McCorquodale 2009) (then their remarkable project, the EU ROMA Gypsies; Orta 2010) and now they have continued this with Mapping America: exploring the continent. This review takes a comparative view of the first and the latest book published in this series, the books about London and America. The review does not intend to evaluate the whole series, but is aimed at a comparative view of the two specific works. It takes these two examples as exemplars to evaluate how far this series succeeds in a new attempt to give a comprehensive overview of the state of maps and mapping for the selected areas. Other works in this series follow a similar approach, but shall not be discussed in detail in this review. Maps can help us to make sense of a place, be it of a place that we know, or a place completely unknown to us. An example of a city as diverse and complex as London presents some challenge. Perhaps making sense of a place or an area is the ultimate reason why we need and want map collections. Mapping London is the work of architect Simon Foxell, who compiled a collection of more than 150 maps that explore the city’s history and character. It is divided into four sections which set a loose framework for this book: rather than following a linear historic timeline, the sections emphasize different thematic aspects that contribute to the diverse geographies of London. Each section contains a general explanatory text that puts the maps into an order as viewed from a common perspective and creates story lines around them. The perspective refers to developments in cartography and mapping as well as important developments in London’s urban form. Each single map is accompanied by a brief explanation and bibliographical details on the map itself, its creator and its origins. This allows the book to be enjoyed as a well elaborated assortment of some of the most remarkable maps of London’s history with some concise but very valuable information on each of the works. The first section concentrates on change and growth of London and comes closest to what is a short outline of London’s history told in maps. It contains a selection of the most significant maps that have been created of London throughout the centuries: a detail from the Copperplate map with its beautifully detailed depictions of houses and people is shown here as well as more precisely surveyed maps from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Eighteenth century maps by John Rocque tell a story of a city that is increasingly gaining an obsession with itself and may be an indication for the early roots of today’s image of London. Panoramic views and a more random selection of thematic maps ranging from demographics to the physical environment – outlining the evolution of mapping in the nineteenth and twentieth century – round off this section. It is this section of the book which gives the most comprehensive picture of the city. Serving the city is the title of the second section which uses maps to investigate the structure and functioning of London. A large part is dedicated to an analysis of the changing political boundaries and structures, including a perhaps slightly too extensive part on visionary maps from various epochs. An impressive example of how a supposedly simplified draft of urban structure can be a very meaningful way of making sense of the city is JH Forshaw’s and Patrick Abercrombie’s ‘County of London Plan’, a social and functional analysis from 1943. The map also marks a post-war change in the approach to analysing and visualising London in its wider The Geographical Journal, 2011, doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2011.00407.x