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How to Lie with Maps Mark Monmonier. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.176 pp. illus. ISBN 0-226-53414-6 (acid-free paper); 0-226-53415-4 (pbk. acid-free paper). $12.95, pbk.
Syracuse University professor and distinguished map maven Monmonier's latest work is in the fine tradition of Darrell Huff's How to Lie with Statistics. That is, it manages to be both an excellent general introduction to its subject-in this case, cartography-and a serious meditation on the process of representing-and misrepresenting-reality. Indeed, the first chapter opens with the basic truth that cartography is essentially an act of selective filtration: "Not only is it easy to lie with maps, it's essential. To portray meaningful relationships for a complex, three-dimensional world on a flat sheet of paper or a video screen, a map must distort reality." Every map is a subjective representation and therefore subject to the "cartographic paradox: to present a useful and truthful picture, an accurate map must tell white lies" (p. 1).
The corollary to all of this is, of course, that the making of maps provides many opportunities for telling lies of many considerably darker hues. This is also true of prose and of numbers that purport to represent the facts. Still, there is a widespread (if inadequate) skepticism concerning much journalism, and long before Darrell Huff, our collective distrust (also inadequate) of statistics had been formulated in Dr. Johnson's dictum that "round numbers are always false." This healthily critical eye does not, however, often extend to map reading. As Monmonier points out, "Map users generally are a trusting lot: they understand the need to distort geometry and suppress features, and they believe the cartographer really does know where to draw the line, figuratively as well as literally" (p. 1).
The purpose of this book is not merely to focus upon this gullibility and its consequences, although it offers many variously amusing and appalling examples thereof. Rather, it sets forth the basic elements of cartography itself, in the process illuminating both the intentional and unintentional pitfalls of the trade. Indeed, the latter loom larger in the field than the former, given that cartographers are not licensed. Many of them are...