maps
USERS OF MAPS—that’s all of us—may suppose that what we see is factual, accurate, bias-free. Of course location, distance, elevation, and comparative importance are reliably shown!
Not so fast, says social activist and pastor Ward L. Kaiser. A map may be “right” in some ways but still dangerous to the way we live in the world.
Why? Because maps are layered with meaning. Surprisingly, their most important messages may lie beneath the surface. In his full-color book How Maps Change Things, Kaiser helps the reader to dig in and discover some of those hidden, mind-bending messages.
As a college chaplain I am acutely, sometimes painfully, aware of the often-hidden narratives and symbols that define us as individuals and as a culture. This book has helped me analyze how maps—an increasingly pervasive form of symbolic messaging and storytelling in our time—connect us to power and privilege or consign us to society’s also-rans.
Artistic rendering of earth from the moon. Image courtesy Ollyy/shutterstock.com
As a child, I thought the only good part of going to the doctor’s office was getting to read the "Highlights" magazine in the waiting room. The "Hidden Pictures" page was my favorite. You‘ve probably seen it. There’s an intricate line drawing that has small pictures cleverly embedded within the big picture. The challenge is to find them. There’s a list of the hidden pictures, and you search to find the comb that’s blended into the girl’s bangs, the carrot concealed in plain sight as part of a spoke in a wheel.