A fascination with the world of maps

My fascination with maps began during my grade school days when I became obsessed with reading historical fiction books and books about other countries.

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This led me to try to locate other countries using a globe.

As I got older, I began to read that world events were very dependent on geography. Hence, the term "geopolitics." As I read and wrote about geopolitics, I began to buy books about maps and their influence on world events. These are the reasons why this book is especially fascinating to me.

Jerry Brotton's "A History of the World in 12 Maps" is a richly detailed and intellectually stimulating exploration of how maps have shaped human understanding of the world. Published in 2012, this ambitious work spans centuries and continents, of fering a fascinating look at the interplay between cartography, power, ideology and identity. Going beyond mere geographical tools, the 12 maps selected serve as reflections of the cultural, political and philosophical frameworks of the societies that produced them.

The book asserts that maps are not objective representations of reality, but rather shaped by the purposes and worldviews of their creators. Brotton, a professor of Renaissance studies and a historian of maps, approaches cartography not as a technical discipline but as a cultural artifact - one that reveals how people have imagined their place in the world across time.