Spreading the links

2007-04-16 07:40 | Permanent Link | General, Locative

I'm generally focused on the geeky side of things so I tend to pay attention mostly to blogs like import cartography, Brain Off, and technical ramblings.

But lately I've been impressed with two blogs that pretty much deal with pure geography and cartography. Strange maps has had some great posts lately, not the least of which is today's post, Europe From Moscow (in 1952). That posting shows a 1952 Time Magazine map of Europe turned on its side, colored with shades of communism and freedom, and distorted in perspective to emphasize the geopolitical situation of the times. Very neat stuff.

The other is Geographic Travels with Catholicgauze! which seems to consistently have interesting bits about specific places or about the geography behind a topic. Today's entry, Geography of Negro League Baseball, is a good example of the latter, talking about where the various teams and leagues were formed and how their locations changed.

Comments

2007-05-25 12:40 | Posted by Daniel | http://www.remotesensingtools.com/

Hello, Allan,

If you're interested in some historical representations of maps, you might also be intrigued by picking-up some of the static and animated bits that the Dadaist movement incorporated in various forms of media. The Dadaists are arguably one of the first generations of artists in the industrial age to incorporate subjective interpretive reference into maps - thus at that time generating a great deal of debate about those maps' relevence. Many of those involved in the Dadaist movement were also from the parts of Europe afflicted by war and politics, as you noted in the European map above.

Interesting stuff, and another example of how art and design generally encourages the enhancement of concept in mapping and utility as it evolves. You can learn more about the Dadaists by doing various searches with your favorite search engine - or search through the archives at one of my favorite sites, http://www.ubu.com/

Ubuweb is also in the period of transitioning their audio and movie archives to the more efficient .FLV format, so accessibility had been rapidly improving.

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