A History of the World in 12 Maps

Lately, I've had this fascination/idea of reading about world history (or at least major events in world history) through the history of seemingly-mundane, everyday objects. The search for literature in this vein has been predictably difficult but I've been fortunate to come across two great books of this theme. The first is A History of the World in 12 Maps by Jerry Brotton. The main idea of the book is somewhat like a visual variant of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: that our maps shape our perception of the world and, in turn, our place in it. I actually tried going into this book with a skeptical mind. I first took on the premise that you can't say much about world history by just looking at maps; maybe the crudeness of various Mappaemundi make them unsuitable for educated speculation. I am pleased to say that, by the end of the book, my premise has been completely obliterated. HN Readers might find the final chapter particularly interesting. It reads on Google Maps and demonstrates that even today in an age of satellite imagery, a map can't claim complete objectivity.…