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The Wandering Cartographer

Thoughts about mapping, history, language, travel, mathematics…

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Smithers, BC V0J 2N2

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morgan@hesperus-wild.org

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Archive of books, etc.
Finding historical place names
Skymodels gallery
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What I'm Reading

The Buried, by Peter Hessler. Can't say enough good things about this book. Peter Hessler is a long-form journalist who moved from Durango, Colorado in 2011 to Cairo with his wife and two baby daughters, to learn Arabic and see what was going on in Egypt. Already I love this family. What's going on in Egypt is the Arab Spring, so he writes about this, but mostly through his relationship with his garbage man, who knows everyone and everything that goes on, and his Arabic classes. It is mind-bogglingly good, and I not only appreciate the merits of his writing, but also am impressed that he pulled off the gamble of selecting the right place and language to go to and invest years in, that there would be a story, and that he would get it to press before some other clever journalist did something similar.
God's Shadow, by Alan Mikhail. Found this book at a library book sale after hearing the author interviewed on the Ottoman History Podcast. This is a history of the times of Sultan Selim (1470-1520) that is not so much about what was happening in the Ottoman lands, as about how Islam shaped the actions and perceptions of Columbus and his circle. The Spanish New World explorers began and ended their lives fighting Muslims, and they carried this reality to the New World in ways that we still live with.
The Border, by Erika Fatland. A Norwegian traveller/journalist sets out in 2017 to circumnavigate Russia by travelling along (and outside) its borders with the 14 countries that are its neighbours. Her mission: to find out what the experience is of living next door to Russia. Just translated into English last year. She's a great observer of people, and manages to get herself into and out of a surprising number of edgy situations.
The Valleys of the Assassins by Freya Stark. First published in 1934, this is Stark's classic account of her journeys in the mountains of Iran in the previous two years. It should perhaps instead have been titled "Memoirs of a Grave Robber," since her primary goal seemed to be digging up ancient burials without any kind of archaeological rigour. Much of this takes place in Luristan, the geography of which place takes centre stage.
A Tale of a Tour in Macedonia by G.F. Abbott. A 1903 book by a Cambridge folklorist about a trip undertaken through the Ottoman Balkans in 1900. specifically Ottoman Macedonia. Very nice piece of late Victorian travel writing, full of generalizations about various peoples but containing much first hand observation which is valuable.
Hero of Two Worlds by Mike Duncan (who is the host of the Revolutions podcast). A recent biography of the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution and then hero again of the French Revolution. Beautifully and engagingly written and read (audiobook).
Islamic Geometric Patterns by Jay Bonner. A massive textbook-like tome on the mathematics, history and classification of Islamic geometric patterns. Swoon. At 595 pages, I may well still be reading this next Christmas.

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Ancient World mapping Area features Baku Blender Cartography Central Asia CIA Climate DARE Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire Divankhana Francis Younghusband Frederick Osborn geodata geographic puzzles geometry Georgia Gertrude Bell Gottfried Merzbacher Greece hiking historical mapping Inkscape Iraq Ireland islamic geometric design Map Map design Maps for books Maps for Books Without Maps Mongolia northern BC OpenStreetMap QGIS raster chunk processing S. F. Markham Shaded relief Skymodel Syria Tbilisi Thessaloniki Tile Map Servers TMS tracing historic features vector map tiles

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