A new edition of Seeing Through Maps, by Denis Wood, Ward Kaiser and Bob Abramms, is now available. It’s the second edition of the book; the first edition, still available on Amazon.com, came out in 2001. This edition, however, appears to be available only through ODT at this point. (Direct link here.) The first chapter is available online as a PDF file, and it makes the rest of the book sound quite interesting: the chapter looks at geographic projections and their purposes — for example, the Mercator projection is not inherently imperialist, it’s simply for a specific use: navigation. The point of the chapter is that each map has its own purpose.

From the press release: “The book discusses how map projections provide information about countries, cultures, the world’s peoples and their history. It also explains the principles and hidden messages contained in a number of unique maps and provocative images.” (Coverage in the Paramus Post is essentially a rewrite of this release.)

This book sounds like it’s in the same vein as Making Maps (co-authored by Wood; reviewed here) and How to Lie with Maps (reviewed here), and you know how I feel about those books.

A companion DVD is also available as of this month.