Book Review – How to Draw a Map (sort of…)

How to Draw a Map (A Mapmaker’s Journey Through History)

By Malcom & Alexander Swanston

HarperCollins 2019 (280 pp.)

This is an attractively produced book which desperately needed an editor. Father and son cartographers have collaborated on this work which can’t seem to decide what kind of book it is. It is not a Teach-Yourself Cartography book, despite the expert knowledge of the authors, because the instruments & methods of surveyors and map-makers get surprisingly little attention. It is not a memoir, despite the distinguished list of publications that Swanston senior has had a hand in. It rather patchily tries to present the entire sweep of humanity (from a Western perspective) but is selective and unsatisfying as a result.

To focus on the positive, the maps (all grey-scale rather than colour) are beautifully produced, and in a uniform style throughout. The early chapters feature some excellent graphics illustrating the changes in conception of the world through Greek and Roman periods, and the different styles of medieval Mappa Mundi are presented in a very neat diagrammatic form. The quality continues for the most part, but the thread of the text detracts: the Eurocentric story of the Age of Discovery show how European maps expanded to present the growing expanse of the “known world”. These maps here though are sterile outlines which do not do justice to the beautiful artwork of Waldseemüller, or the technical brilliance of Mercator’s projection etc. Later high-quality detailed maps appear, but with little discussion in the text. On occasion the mere mention of a battle is accompanied by a detailed battle plan but with detail that is not warranted. This results in some uncomfortable disjunctions of words and graphics.

The book’s title (How to Draw a Map) certainly raised my expectations that this might include a history of mapmakers and the technologies that enabled their work. There is evidence that this will be the case, in the stories of Eratosthenes looking down a well and Ptolomy’s innovative use of Latitude and Longitude. But then there follow several chapters drearily listing the achievements of European explorers, with very little about the challenges they faced navigating and charting their ways into the unknown. There is an unaccountable silence about the problem of measuring longitude and the eventual brilliance of Harrison’s chronometers. It is 170 pages before we are introduced to the Cassini dynasty of mathemagicians who devised the use of timings based on the movements of Jupiter’s moons in order to achieve the brilliant survey of France for the (disappointed) King Louis XIV.

Of the Mapmaker’s Journey Through History of the book’s subtitle, it reads in the middle chapters like history from GCSE revision notes, with a plain listing of some epic journeys, fantastic adventures and gruesome empire-building. Several stories are rushed through, for example Cortes’ bloody progress through Mexico, which barely even mentions the place names – a soulless outline of a litany of murderous outrages. There is a little reflection on the Theory of Empire, but scant attention to the exploitation and atrocity underpinning the domination of Portugal, Spain, France, Britain etc., each in their turn. This is uncomfortable in the contemporary climate: history is never just a series of events but is always told from some perspective or other (or else is unwittingly assuming a prevailing, or here out-dated, standpoint).

This could have been a readable memoir, given the range of publications Malcolm Swanston has contributed to and the people that he has collaborated with. He mentions with admiration historians who have commissioned his work, but doesn’t elaborate. The final chapter teases us with the story of him meeting Carl Sagan to provide graphics for a book of his. But there are only a few, sporadic personal observations (observations on great cities; his travels to the USA) which I think is a missed opportunity. A confusing aspect of the book is the decision (explained in the preface) to write in the first person singular, despite it being co-authored.

There are some gems of chapters: the one on slavery provides some colourful episodes from the history of the Barbary Pirates of North Africa, including the story of the Dutch pirate who occupied Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel for a few years, while operating under the flag of the Ottoman Empire; or the relations between the fledgling USA and the Barbary Coast in which Jefferson and Adams negotiated with the ambassador of Tripoli to release US citizens captured by slavers, resulting in the USA paying tribute to the tune of 10% of its national income! Surely that warranted some mention of the irony of one slave-owning nation arguing morality with another? And the chapter about the Mason-Dixon Line – the technical & political challenges, together with the social and historical consequences – was another point where the book came alive, but was again too briefly passed over,

Almost all of the book is written in a dry style, but with anachronistic phrases thrown in (“clap eyes on”, “I don’t know about you, but…”, “the Legions packed their bags and marched away”). Sadly it is all over the place and lacks coherence. It could have been so much better. The one map that is missing is the route from a beginning through a middle to the end – the map which answer’s the question “where was the editor?”

What to reach for next…

• Mercator: The Man Who Mapped The Planet by Nicholas Crane (Phoenix, 2003) – this is one of the best biographies I know.
• The Times Concise Atlas of World History, Geoffrey Barraclough, editor (Times Books / HarperCollins, 1982 / 1994 5th Edition) – this features excellent maps and graphics by Swanston Graphics Ltd., a showcase of the featured authors’ superb work.
• The Times History of the World in Maps: The Rise and Fall of Empires, Countries and Cities (HarperCollins, 2014/2015) – another magnificent coffee table book, with maps in chronological order, starting in ancient Babylon (including a photo of the clay tablet from the British Museum with the Babylonian World Map represented graphically in the Swanston book, above) up to the last chapter on satellite imagery and Google Maps.
• New Worlds: Maps from the Age of Discovery by Ashley and Miles Baynton-Williams (Quercus, 2008) – this is a beautiful book which includes 120 fine colour reproduction maps ranging from the late 15th century (e.g. a Ptolemaic map from 1475) through to late 18th century (e.g. the diamond and gold fields of South Africa, ripe for exploitation in 1871; or a satirical map of Europe from 1899).
• And on the subject of history-writing shaping the past, and whether it can ever – or should ever – be “objective”, I am reaching for Margaret MacMillan’s The Uses and Abuses of History or John Burrows’ History of Histories both mind-expanding reads. But this note is too small to open up this fascinating topic: it deserves some more thought and a separate blog post…