On The Map is a book about something that makes us human. Maps relate and realign our history. They reflect our best and worst attributes – discovery and curiosity, conflict and destruction – and they chart our transitions of power. Even as individuals, we seem to have a need to plot a path and track our progress, to imagine possibilities of exploration and escape. And maps fascinate us because they tell our stories. The ones in this book examine how maps came about, who drew them, what they were thinking, and how we use them. Like any map, of course, the choice is highly selective, for a book about maps is effectively a book about the progress of the world: sturdier ships in the fifteenth century, triangulation in the late-sixteenth century, the fixing of longitude in the eighteenth, flights and aerial observation in the twentieth century. And then, in this century, the Internet, GPS and sat nav – and perhaps, through them, a second reshaping of our own spatial abilities.

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