Cities of the World: A History in Maps |
Buy Cities of the World: A History in Maps here, one of 750 Hurricanes books offered for sale at discount prices here in the history books section at R bookshop. There are currently 74709 history books in our history books section, and over 1,000,000 books listed in our book store. We greatly appreciate your patronage at R bookshop and look forward to offering you a large selection of great books at discount prices now and in the future. Thank you for shopping at R Bookshop!
|
You Are Here: Home > History Books > Hurricanes > Item 204
 |
Cities of the World: A History in Maps
|
by Peter Whitfield
Sales Rank: 220107
|
$19.90
At Amazon
on 6-20-2008.
|
|
|
|
Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 208 pages
Published by: University of California PressEdition: 1st Edition October 10, 2005
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0520247256
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0520247253
Book Dimensions:
12.4 x 9.4 x 1 inches
Weighs: 3.4 pounds
From Booklist
In this collection of historical maps of about sixty cities, Whitfield, an eminent historian of cartography, yields much insight about how cities have perceived themselves. The maps themselves, which date from the Renaissance to the Victorian era, generally come in two forms: the perspective, or bird's-eye view, and the scaled map, an attempt at exact measurement of a city's streets and landmarks. One of Whitfield's themes is the idealization of a city that maps of these types induced. When given a pictorial representation of a city, viewers could imagine how to improve it aesthetically. This was the express purpose of maps of planned cities such as Washington, D.C. Capturing the civic spirit is another purpose explored by Whitfield; in his compact city histories, he dwells on a place's origin as a fortress (such as Luxembourg and Quebec) or as a commercial center (Amsterdam and New York). Selecting cities from around the world, Whitfield promotes certain browsing of nearly 150 colorful and gorgeously reproduced historical charts. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Product Description
Condensing centuries of history into one volume, Cities of the World traces the historic form and special character of the world's greatest cities through a breathtaking collection of maps and panoramic views. Peter Whitfield focuses on more than sixty cities--from Athens to Brasilia, Washington to Moscow, San Francisco to Saigon, and Venice to Lhasa. He presents an extremely wide range of maps, historic prints, and photographs from many periods that show how the architectural form and the social life of our cities have been shaped--not only by their geographical setting, but also by religion, royal power, commerce, social ideals, and occasionally artistic vision. These images illustrate the historic heart of the cities: the ancient harbors, the hilltop fortresses, the encircling walls, and the houses, churches, and palaces that have been added over the centuries. For the armchair traveler or anyone passionate about the history of human civilization, this gorgeous, unique book captures the richness of the urban fabric and reflects the collective memory of each metropolis.
Cities of the World demonstrates how the city was linked to the birth and progress of civilization itself, how it has acted as a focus for ideas and technologies, arts and sciences, and even religious devotion. It shows the ways that some cities grew slowly into haphazard, unplanned beauties, while others were shaped by the will of masterful individuals. Whitfield picked the cities featured here not only because they are richly and gorgeously illustrated, but also because they demonstrate a notion of spirit--an outward and inward uniqueness.
Many of these historic maps have a pictorial quality that vanished long ago from the functional town-plan. Depicting the classical city-state, the medieval fortress, the baroque capital, and the industrial metropolis, the sumptuous illustrations in this book chronicle how simple outlines found on Babylonian clay tablets evolved into the stylized pictures of medieval times and spectacular bird's-eye panoramic views, finally culminating in the highly functional mass-produced maps of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Wonderfully evocative of the places they depict and the artistic tastes of their time, these maps shed new light on civilization itself, with all of its contradictions, shortcomings, energy, and aspirations.
Reader Reviews
The author has collected some 150 maps from the history of about sixty cities from around the world. I expected these maps to be beautiful works of art, but I didn't expect that the differences in the maps would show much more than that. The nature of the maps seem to show a lot about how the map maker viewed the city. The maps date from several hundred years ago when map makers were not all using Mercator projection in a more or less standard fashion. Here are maps of many styles. Some show the roads of a city, some show the fortifications, some are more concerned with making a pictorial representation of the city. ==As the subtitle of the book says, here in only a few pages the history of the city can be seen. The cities grow, and the view of the city changes with the will and skill of the map maker. This book gives me a completely different view of maps and what they can show. Highly recommended.
Comment | |
(Report this)
Back To Top
|
Cities of the World: A History in Maps
Available from Amazon
Price: $19.90
Updated on 6-20-2008.
|
NOTICE: All prices, availability, and specifications
are subject to verification by their respective retailers.
| We offer Cities of the World: A History in Maps and other related Hurricanes Books here at Rbookshop.com. To view more books about Hurricanes please use the previous and next buttons near the top of this page.
|
|
Search for books at
