All Over the Map: A Cartographic Odyssey

This is an amazing book! An oversized book by National Geographic, this book includes gorgeous maps from across history, along with stories of those maps. Not only wonderful to look at, this book is very interesting to read. I highly recommend this book. Please mark if you find my review helpful. Thank you so much!

All Over the Map by Betsy Mason and Greg Miller showed up today and it is an absolutely beautiful book. As you'd expect in a book about maps, the maps are visually stunning, interesting, and represent a wide variety of topics and styles. The printing is well done and everything is very high quality.What I love most about this book is that each map is accompanied by an interesting story. Sometimes the story has to do with the subject depicted in the map, sometimes it is about how the map was produced, and sometimes it has to do with the interesting history of a rare and important map itself. What this results in is an interesting collection of topics that changes unexpectedly with each turn of the page. As I scanned through the book the first time I was captivated by stories like "A Mesoamerican Survivor" (describing the close-calls that nearly destroyed a rare Aztec map) right next to wonderful images from a thoroughly modern view of Earth's weather in "World of Wind".The organization of the book - which avoids a 'history of maps' format contributes even further to the interesting juxtaposition of maps and narratives.I couldn't be more impressed with this book. I'll be giving this as a gift this holiday season and will certainly keep a copy on my shelf!

I admire the scope of the book and the huge effort it must have taken to compile it but the pictures of the maps are not large enough to actually read the maps! I keep thinking I need new glasses or a magnifying glass.It is an interesting compilation about the HISTORY of maps - but if you like maps you obviously what to LOOK at the MAPS!!! And unfortunately most of them are not large enough to read the detail.

Don't let the title fool you. This beautifully designed, meticulously researched book isn’t just for the cartographically inclined. Whether you’re a history buff, a scientist, or someone who just loves lively and engaging storytelling, you'll find something fascinating on nearly every page of "All Over the Map."

This is an amazing book! Both my husband and 14 year old son are “mappy” and they have spent hours both together and individually talking about and reading this book. Their favorite stories/maps are the SF Shipwreck, Soviet Union communist map and the Death Star. The book is well organized and the layout, graphics and photos compliment the engrossing text perfectly. Highly recommend!!

This is an amazing book! The maps are beautiful, stunning, interesting, engaging and informative. National Geographic definitely has a winner with All Over the Map. My 15 year old son immediately found the map of the Death Star and was hooked after that. We have all picked it up and read about a topic that then led to a discussion about something scientific or historical. Great book to have out and available for both kids and adults alike. Definitely recommended!!

Very neat book. I got this for Christmas for my map-loving boyfriend (geography major, has had only mapping-related jobs) and he started reading it immediately. It has a great variety of maps, including fictional maps (Game of Thrones! Death Star plans!), but from what he said, it also includes some of the well-known "classic" maps. Good graphics, and enough of a story with each map that it feels more substantial than your typical coffee-table book full of pretty pictures.

This book provides interesting and informative background on a variety of maps from different time periods. The content is divided by different topics--e.g., waterways, cities, landscape, economies, science. Closeup views as well as the overall map are provided in a number of cases. The text accompanying each entry is easily read. This is a book that likely will please the devotee of maps as well as those somewhat of interest.

Beautiful illustrations of maps etc but to be honest I think I've seen many many maps that I think would have been better for such a book. It's a little, how should I put it, a little stale? Lacking in truelly interesting maps. Kudos for a different approach but the chosen material is hit or miss for grabbing your attention or imagination.Still has lovely technical drawings /maps but intermixed with ones you'll skip past and never look at.It does still qualify as an interesting coffee table book but your guests may read it and think wow that's fairly dull!!

Good quality. Attractive.

My niece was spellbound by the intriguing maps. It has been greatly enjoyed.

Very interesting book

Husband liked it.