'-

Book Reviews

particular but also the computerization of society and cui, .ture in general. The ineluctability of paradox in humanityconstantly reminds us that mere technological power andscientific knowledge exalt human nature but do not blessit. We must strive to liberate ourselves from the domina-

tion of technological innovations at the ontological, epis-temological, and ethical levels in order to make ourplanet a better place to live. If widely read and under,stood, Curry's new book will facilitate our work towardthat goal.

Key Words: ethics, GIS, social implications of informationtechnology.

References

Curry, M. R. 1996. The work in the world: Geographicalpracticeand .

the written word. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Pickles, J., ed. 1995. Ground truth: The social implications of geo-

graphic information systems. New York: Guilford Press.

Concise Historical Atlas of Canada. William G. Dean, Conrad Heidenreich, Thomas F. McIlwraith, and JohnWarkentin, eds.;GeoffreyJ. Matthews and ByronMoldofsky,cartographers.Toronto: University of Toronto Press,1998.xx and 180pp., 67 plates, and notes. $85.00cloth (ISBN0-8020,4203,l).

Reviewedby ZolranGrossman,Department of Geography,University of Wisconsin,Madison,.Madison,WI.

The Historical.Atlas of Canada, published in three vol-umes between 1987 and 1993, still stands as the flagshipof North American historical atlases. The Concise Histor-

ical Atlas of Canada, published in 1998, is a long-awaitedcondensed version of the three-volume series. This im-mensely complex atlas project began three decades ago,and the project's multiple sources of research and devel-opment support (Piternick 1993), would make its ownfascinating map. Far from simply retelling Canada's st6ry,The HistoricalAtlas of Canada itself became a mileston~ inthe country's scholarly and cartographic history.

The full three-volume set divided Canada's historyinto three periods. Volume 1 carried the history of thenorthern half of North America from 18,000 BC to 1800AD, volumeZ narrated Canadian history to 1891, and vol-ume 3 took the story to 1961. The outCome included 193.self-contained plates (double-page spreads); covering animmense range of national. and regional themes, pre~sented in imaginative, cross-cutting juxtapositions. Witha mixture of reference and thematic maps, the atlas pro-vided a balance between the "application-neutral" refer-ence atlas and the "application-specific" thematic atlas.The atlas plates exhibited creative collaboration betweenhistorians and cartographers (Ommer and Wood 1985). 0

The impact of the project went far beyond Canada's. borders, as the innovative maps by University of Torontocartographer/designer GeoffreyJ.Matthews pointed to-ward new directions for hiStorical cartography. The plateSintegrated maps with charts, graphs, diagrams, illustra-tions, ana short interpretive narratives, using featheredmap boundaries instead of clear neatlines and employinga subtle color palette and attractive reproductions of his-toric maps. Many of the plates presented a refreshingly

dynamic portrayal of history, with flow arrows and a lackof emphatic boundaries communicating the complexmovements and interrelationships that are often oversim-plified in historical atlases. The multi-image plates weresometimes so overwhelming that the legend box for a par-ticular map could be difficult to find (a consistent legendfill color would help).

The Concise Historical Atlas of Canada was devised toappeal to a general public that might not have purchasedthe three-volume set and to be used in history and geog-raphy classes. The new atlas displays 67 plates out of the193 in the full set. In what must have been a difficult pro-ceSs, editors William G. Dean, Conrad Heidenreich,Thomas F. McIlwraith, and John Warkentin selected theplates they felt best reflected thematic, geographic, andtemporal b~ce. .The preface 'to the concise edition out-lines the editors' wish. to direct ,"our attention to those

plates that mirror the social and economic experiences ofordinary people rather than the political and military ac-tivi~ies associated with individual heroes." .

The concise edition uses a different structure than the

original volumes, with three thematic/regional sections .and each section's plates organizedin a roughlychrono- .

logical order. ''National Perspectives" presents overarch-ing views of historical themes covering the entire Cana-dian landmasS;' divided' into' subsections on prehistoriCand native Canada; exp1oration, territorial extent, popu-lation, transport and urbanization, the economy, and s0-ciety. "Defining Episodes'~ presents historical events andturning points, such as the Seven Years' War, the War of181Z, key immigration waves, and the world wars. "Re-gional Patterns" presents regional case studies of largetnational trends or unique regional developments, divided

Book Reviews

I,;. into tWOsections: "The East," and "The West and the.. North." Each section is introduced with a concise essay

that places the plates in context of a larger overview ofhistOrical developments. Each plate is referenced in the"Notes and Sources" section in the back of the atlas,which provides thorough explanations of map details anduseful thematic' bibliographies. ThUs, t}le contise atlascan be used not only as a reference tool but also as a firststop for snidents researching national ~d regionalthemes. It could perhaps have served this purpose evenbetter if it had been reformatted ~ a map-intensive text~book. Neverthel~, it serves many of the same purposesasan educational curriculumpublication. .

Like history textbooks, the three~ecade atlas projecthas clearly played a role in bolstering a national narrative(Sparke 1998). The project coincided with some of thegreatest challenges to canada's national.identity in theentire history of the country. Quebecois separatism, con~stitutional reform, reassertions of First Nations sover~eignty, and the cultural/economic tidal wave from theUnited States can be viewed as continuations of the atlas

narrative, which halted in 1961. Arguably, these upheav~als could already provide enough material for a compel.ling volume 4. They were also clearly reflected in the de~velopment of the atlas, which provided a cartographicbulwark for Canada's distinctive ideritity. .

Rather than simply retelling national history for ascholarly or public audience, historical atlases are activeagents in the state~building process or in building thepopular legitimacy of an existing state. The Concise His~roricalAtlas of Canada makes this purpose explicit in itsPreface by stating the hope that the book will make a "sig~nificant contribution to Canadians' understanding of oneanother and' foster fuller knowledge and pride in theircountry." The editor of volume 1, R. Cole Harris, notedthat "from the beginning of the European encounter withNorth America, developments in the north, which led toCanada, were different from those farther south, whichled to the United States. The country's southern bound~aty is not a geographical absurdity."

The three~volume set, published in both official lan-guages of Canada, took special pains to present Franco~phone and Native histories with the same care as thedominant Anglophone settlement narrative. A few re-viewers have focused critically on.the presentation of FirstNations histories. One suggested that focusing on culturalareas in the precolonial efoi and material cultures in thecolonial era "divides the historic from the prehistoric"(Konrad 1988). Another assened that the atlas gave am-ple coverage to counterhegemonic sovereignties of earlyNative peoples--and was even noted in a notorious Brit~ish Columbia land rights trial-but may have incorpo-

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207

rated them into a later overarching Canadian "mosaic" -(Sparke 1998). Compared to other national historical at~lases, the project went to great lengths to reflect the his-tory of national and linguistic "minorities," but morework remains to be done on modem periods.

One of the most imponant problems pointed out withregard to the three~volume set was 'not corrected in theConcise edition: the lack of an index (Woodward 1988).A'place name and thematic index would have been animmense help to students or foreign. scholars without anintimate knowledge of Canadian history. The frustrationof not finding an index grows panly out of the greatness ofthe atlas, as if a world-class city such as New York or Parislacked a phone book, or a nation such as Italy or Chinanever bothered to publish a cookbook. An index is alsouseful for exposing interrelationships betWeen phenom~ena in. the same place. It may be revealing, for instance,tluit Amherstburg appears on plates dealing with trans-portation routes, the Iroquois, the War of 1812, and tim-ber exports. The editors plan a separate comprehensiveindex covering all three volumes and the concise edition,but that is little solace to a secondary school student whois searching the back of the atlas in vain.

The concise edition's attractiveness and cogent orga~nization may understandably lull readers who have notstudied the full set into assuming that the new version iscomprehensive. Yet the editors were forced to omit manyinteresting plates that appear in the full set, inclurf"Iroquoian Agricultural Settlement" and "Norse Voyag"and Settlements" from volume I, "Dispersal of the Mani~toba Metis and the Northwest Rebellion, 1870-1885"and "The Changing Face of Labour Protest" from volume2, and "Working Worlds" and "Sea and Livelihood in At-lantic Canada" from volume 3. Oddly, the national eco-nomic subsection contains no plates from volume 2,which covered most of the nineteenth century.

. In selecting plates that showcase only one third of thefull set, the editors perhaps inevitably emphasized hege~monic themes over counterhegemonic trends in Cana~dian histoty. Lacking the Riel rebellions, labor strikes,and other events that mitigate against the national storyof territorial and economic expansion, the concise edi-tion risks spotlighting the "Canada~that~is" at the ex~pense of the possible "paths not followed." Though platescovering the colonial era ponray numerous clashingchoices, the concise edition plates on more recent erasleave the impression of an inevitable progression toward thecontemporary status quo. For this reason alone, the three-volume set remains a necessary presence alongside the con-cise atlas, and will remain invaluable for decades to come.

The major legacy of The Hisrorical Atlas of Canada se-ries is that it has shown what is possible in the an and sci-

208 Book Reviews

ence of the historical atlas, which blends time and spacein the setting of a particular place. The project has alreadyinspired the development of smaller regional atlasesthroughout the continent. My own work in helping to de-velop Wisconsin's Past and Present:A HistoricalAtlas (Wis-consin Cartographers' Guild 1998) owed much to the sen-sitive cartography and compact text of the Canadian series.The Concise HistoricalAtlas of Canadawill make the modelavailable to a wider audience, and hopefully inspire similarnational projects in the United States and other countries.

Key Words: Canada, cartographic presentation, historical geog.raphy, national atlas.

References

Gentilcore, R. L., ed. 1990. Historicalatlas of Canada. Vol. 2, ~land transformed, 1800-1891. Toronto: University of Tqr-onto Press.

Harris, R. C., ed. 1987. Historical atlas of Canada. Vol. I, Fromthe beginning U? 1800. Toronto: University of TorontoPress.

Kerr, D., and D. W. Holdsworth, eds. 1993. Historicalatlas o/Can.ada. Vol. 3, Addressing the twentieth century, 1891-/961.Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Konrad, V. 1988. Review of Historical atlas of Canada I: From thebeginningto 1800. Annals of theAssociationof American Geog.raphers78:368- n.

Omrner, R. E, and C. H. Wood. 1985. Data, concept, and thetranslation to graphics. Cartographica22:44-62.

Pitemick, A. B. 1993. The historical atlas of Canada: The projectbehind the product. Cartographica30:21-31.

Sparke, M. 1998. A map that roared and an original atlas: Can.ada, carrography, and the narration of nation. Annals of theAssociation of American Geographers88:463-95.

Wisconsin Cartographers' Guild. 1998. WISconsin's past andpresent: A historicalatlas. Madison: University of WisconsinPress.

Woodward, David. 1988. Review of Historical Atlas of Canada,edited by Cole Harris. Canadian Geographer32:74-75.

The History of Cartography. Volume2,Book3, Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Austra-lian, and Pacific Societies. DavidWoodwardand G. Malcolm Lewis,~ds.Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1998.xxiiand 640pp., maps,diags.,photos.,tables,app.,notes, refs.,and index.$150.00cloth (ISBN0-226-90728-7).

Reviewedby Robert Rundstrom,Department of Geography,University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK.

David Woodward states the purposes of this volume inhis preface: "[to] . ..bring into the history of cartograpHymaps that had previously been ignored or relegated to th,emargins of the subject," and to accomplish a "redefinitionand expansion of the canon of early maps." He and co-editor Malcolm Lewis obviously succeed on both counts,producing a unique and valuable reference that yields asmany good questions as answers. I am tro~bled by its over-all structure, but about the content I am overwhelmiDglypositive,.. , ,,'. '. ,;,', ,

The title indicates'the five parts into which. the book isorganized. The short section on Africa consists of a briefessay by a South African archeologist on the rock art ofsouthern Africa and geographer Th6mas Bassett's chapteron maps in intertropical Africa. The Americas are next,consuming fully half the volume, and including Lewis'slong-awaited summation ofNor:th American Indian andInuit'maps, easily the longest chapter in the .book (131'pag~), art,historian Barbara M!1Ddy'slong essay on Me-soamerica, geographer, WilliaJn, Gartner on the centralAndes, and a final short piece ,about lowland SouthAmerica and the Caribbean by",anthropologist NeilWhitehead. Elena Okladnikova, a museum ethnogra-pher, provides a short chapter about subarctic and arcticEurasia, and two essays by anthropologist Peter,Sutton

comprise the unit on .Australia. The final section on thePacific Basin includes an essay on Papua New Guinea byanthropologist- Eric Silverman, another anthropologist,Ben Finney, on Oceanui. (Mi~ronesil). and Polynesia ex-cept for the Maori), and Phillip Barton, a former map cu-rator, on the M~ori. Only Silverman and Finney appear tohave spent substantial time with the people who madethe maps they s~dy. Abrief introduction and conclusionby the editors bracket ,these substantive contributions.;The book is lay~hly. ~otated with extensiv.e discursivefootnotes, and illustrated with 459. monochrome imagesand twepty-fourcolorpla~es.,.- .":'..',, "

If the cartographic vOyeur in you is thirsty, drink up. Inthese pages you will find Iroquois. wampum or road belts,examples ,of Eurasian and .Nol-th American pyroscapuli-mancy, Tabwa (Bantu) embodiment of places throughcartographic scarification, Evenk (Siberjap. plateau) sha-mans' perSonal mystical joume~ dra~.on their clothes,Nivkhi (northeastern RUSsia)I;I.lapSon.birch ritual vesselsmeant to hold the hearts of ~.. Diyari wooden, was ofSoutP. Australia, and Wopkaiinin trophy arrays of animalbones in Papua New Guinea. The overall impression isone of a map-obsessed world~and a wodd absolutely dif-ferent from "ours," a point I will retUrn to below.

On the whole, the book represents a huge achieve-