The Mapmakers’ Quest by David Buisseret, Oxford University Press, £20, ISBN 019210053X Reviewed by Roy Herbert
SIR Thomas Elyot, writing in the 16th century about the utility and pleasures of maps, thought that nothing could be more delightful than following voyages with their aid and that of his imagination “in a warme studie or parlor.”
And “a graphic representation of part of the earth’s surface” used to suffice as the definition of a map. But modern cartographers find that definition inadequate, though other names suggested such as “locational image” are not likely to catch on. But the main aim of The Mapmakers’ Quest is to explain…
