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GROUND TRUTH: THE SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS / John Pickles, editor. New York: The Guilford Press, 1995. xvi, 248 pp. ISBN 0 - 89862 - 295 - 6 US$18.95.
This text is likely to become a reference point in geography, cartography, and other fields with interests in GIS. In part, this success will be based on timing: it is at least five years since the mass adoption of GIS technology; we have seen significant GIS productivity, and the boosterism and politics of GIS promotion are well rehearsed. Now, serious issues about the technology and its use can be revealed and debated, and this text promotes the process. The collection should also do well on the basis that there are few texts in this area -- a point Pickles notes with surprise, given the critique of technist approaches to science that have been developed since the 1970s. For the serious - minded, it is worth noting that the preface is more than a perfunctory statement: Pickles locates the critical basis of the volume in the contemporary geographical discourse, and the uninitiated may be in for some surprises. For those inclined to pick entry points on the basis of an existing interest, alternate points...