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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Map Projections
From: Herbert Prinz
Date: 2005 Apr 9, 20:23 -0400
From: Herbert Prinz
Date: 2005 Apr 9, 20:23 -0400
Zvi Doron wrote:
>Looking for a recommendation regarding a good book on map projections - a
>navigational slant would be good, as well as clear graphics. Any ideas?
>
>
>
Much depends on whether you are looking for a historical or a systematic
approach toward the subject; and in the latter case, just how
mathematical you want to get. Going into the middle, I would say
John B. Snyder, "Flattening the Earth", UCP 1997, is an excellent choice.
Herbert Prinz
P.S.
The more technical books that I own are out of print now, so I will
leave it to our youngest list member to comment on available ones.
(Would Snyder's "Map Projections: A reference Manual" be a good choice?)
There can be a great difference in how an author treats the subject. It
matters whether you prefer a geometrical or analytical, a theoretical or
numerical treatment, etc.
Lloyd A. Brown, "The Story of Maps", 1949, is a good historical survey
of map making in general, however, it does not particularly focus on
projections and certainly does not go into their mathematical details. I
mention it anyway, because it has enough of a navigational slant. There
is a chapter on "Charts and the Haven-Finding Art", one on "Latitude"
and one on "Longitude". Besides, is a classic, and the Dover reprint is
so cheap that there is no excuse not to have it on the book shelf.
As one would expect, there are several specialized treatises on Mercator
and/or his projection. It so happens that I just started reading Mark
Monmonier, "Rhumb Lines and Map Wars. A Social History of the Mercator
Projection", UCP, 2004.
The phrase "map wars" is an allusion to the controversy around the
Peters projection. ("Mercator maps lie.", "They make the size of the
third world look too small", etc.) However, the book is not just a
polemic against Peters. The first few chapters which I have read so far
deal with the early history of the Mercator projection. They are full of
historical details and make very interesting reading. As the title says,
this is not a technical, but a sociological investigation. The author
explains just enough geometry so that the general reader can follow the
argument.
