Denis Wood (1)

Mapping philosophy with a twist of curmudgeonliness, parsing cartography from the top down: the power structure, the agendas, the symbology, the unstated. You get a healthy dose of mapmaking semiotics, which is not necessarily a bad thing unless you never want to see the words "signified" and "signifier" again as long as you live. But I like Denis Wood's take on things, and the chapter where he recreates a child's cognitive evolution of hillsign making, including unpacking the way landmasses are portrayed in The Little Engine That Could, Millions of Cats, and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, are worth the price of admission right there. Wood can get a bit didactic, but that's not always a bad thing, and his skepticism is by and large healthy. Even if he does punctuate like a 12-year-old girl, this is a very readable and entertaining treatise.… (más)