2025 Books in Map History, plus some missed from 2023/4

It’s time for the annual list of books in map history, as well as some more conceptual and contemporary works that seem to me of relevance to map history. I doubt if I’ll see any more before the end of the year, so here it is. Previous annual lists are from 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, and 2017.

As ever, inclusion in this list does not mean that I’ve actually seen the book. I do have many of the following, and the Osher Map Library has more, but some I still know only from library catalogs, social media, or amazon.com. Similarly, inclusion is not a sign of approbation; I’m just presenting the titles that I have encountered.

Note: for the most part, I generally include books according to their US publication date, although I do include here a couple of books that were published in the UK in 2023 but that are listed with 2024 dates on online sales platforms.

Do I have any favorites from this year’s haul? These lists are always a bit of a grab bag, given the sheer breadth of this field, and there are many excellent works; some books are rather traditional in approach, others are pushing “maps” into new territories. I especially appreciate James Cheshire’s The Library of Lost Maps, Bill Rankin’s Radical Cartography, Camille Serchuk’s Lies of the Land, and Kären Wigen’s Territorial Imaginaries.

Have fun reading!

Altić, Mirela Slukan. 2025. Kosovo in Maps. Leiden: Brill.

Anonynous. 2025. Maps, Annotated: The World’s 300 Greatest Maps. London: DK.

Bahoken, Françoise, and Nicolas Lambert. 2025. Cartographia: Comment les géographes (re)dessinent le Monde. Paris: Armand Colin.

Billé, Franck. 2025. Somatic States: On Cartography, Geobodies, Bodily Integrity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Binnema, Ted, François Lanoë, and Heinz W. Pyszczyk. 2025. Cartographic Poetry: Examining Historic Blackfoot and Gros Ventre Maps. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press.

Bouloux, Nathalie, and Jean-Charles Ducène, eds. 2023. Territoires, régions, royaumes: Le développement d’une cartographie locale et régionale dans l’Occident latin et le monde arabe (Xe–XVe siècle). Turnhout: Brepols.

Brady, Paul, and Paul Ferguson. 2025. Ireland: Mapping the Island. Edinburgh: Birlinn.

Braund, Kathryn H. 2024. Mapping Conquest: The Battle Maps of Horseshoe Bend. Athens: University of Georgia Press.

Brennetot, Arnaud, and Clarisse Didelon-Loiseau, eds. 2024. Représenter le territoire: Concepts, définitions, construction. Rennes: Press Universtaires de Rennes.

Carrió Cataldi, Leonardo Ariel. 2025. Temps, sciences et empire: Cosmographie et navigation dans les monarchies ibériques au XVIe siècle. Turnhout: Brepols.

Chassagnette, Axelle. 2024. Le prince qui aimait les cartes: Appréhension et représentation des territoires sous Auguste Ier de Saxe (1553–1586). Strasbourg: Presses universitaires de Strasbourg.

Cheshire, James. 2025. The Library of Lost Maps: An Archive of a World in Progress. London: Bloomsbury.

Chetcuti, Emanuel, and Joseph Schirò. 2024. British Maps of Malta. Malta: Heritage Malta Publishing.

Cooper-Jones, Mark, and Jay Foreman. 2025. This Way Up: The Debut Book from Map Men. New York: HarperCollins.

Doré, Andréa. 2025. Mapping South American Promises: Potosí, Brazil, and European Visions. Leiden: Brill.

Dreer, Cornelia. 2025. Weltkarten für Ranulph Higdens Polychronicon. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Edney, Matthew H. 2025. Comparative Map History and “the History of Cartography”: Methodologies, Institutions, and Idealizations. Leiden: Brill.

Elledge, John. 2024. A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders: Surprising Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps. New York: The Experiment. •• Also available as A History of the World in 47 Borders: The Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps (London: Wildfire, 2025).

Escardó, Anna, and Julius Wiedemann, eds. 2024. Science Illustration: A History of Visual Knowledge from the 15th Century to Today. Cologne: Taschen.

Faričić, Josip, and Tome Marelić, eds. 2025. Early Modern Nautical Charts of the Adriatic Sea: Information Sources, Navigation Tools, and Communication Media. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. •• Open access at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-96-8046-7.

Findlen, Paula, with Kelly (Keming) Fu and Anna Moller. 2025. A World in the Making: Urbano Monte’s Global Map circa 1587. Stanford, CA: David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford University Libraries.

Fletcher, David. 2025. The Queen’s Atlas: Saxton’s Elizabethan Masterpiece. Oxford: Bodleian Library. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2026.

Forss, Charlotta. 2025. Mapping the North: Myth, Exploration, Encounter. Oxford: Bodleian Library. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Francis, Julian. 2024. Herry Perry: Artist & Illustrator, 1897–1962. Bristol: Sansom & Co.

Freriks, Kester, with Reinder Storm. 2025. Stad van water en licht: Een geschiedenis in kaarten, met veel illustraties. Amsterdam: Athenaeum.

Gautier Dalché, Patrick. 2024. Mappae mundi (VIIIe–XIIe siècle). 2 vols. Turnhout: Brepols.

Gitai, Ben. 2025. Mapping Power: History of Landscape in the Jordan Valley. Lausanne: EPFL Press.

Grollemond, Larisa, Kelin Michael, Elizabeth Morrison, and Joshua O’Driscoll. 2024. The Book of Marvels: A Medieval Guide to the Globe. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum.

Hardenberg, Wilko Graf von. 2024. Sea Level: A History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Harper, Tom, Nick Dykes, and Magdalena Peszko. 2025. Secret Maps: Maps You Were Never Meant to See, from the Middle Ages to Today. London: British Library; Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hendriks, Martin. 2025. Landmeter aan het hof van Gelderland, ingenieur des konings in Noorwegen: Isaac van Geelkercken (1615–1672). Zwolle: Wbooks.

Huth, John Edward. 2025. A Sense of Space: A Local’s Guide to a Flat Earth, the Edge of the Cosmos, and Other Curious Places. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Karunaratne, Gihan, ed. 2025. Mapping: Narratives, Practices and Spatial Inquiry. London: Routledge.

Kimmel, Seth. 2024. The Librarian’s Atlas: The Shape of Knowledge in Early Modern Spain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. •• map adjacent

Lambert, Mark, James Harkins, Brian A. Stauffer, and Patrick Walsh. 2025. Texas Takes Shape: A History in Maps from the General Land Office. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Leveugle, Jean, and Emmanuelle Vagnon. 2024. Géographia: L’odyssée cartographique de Ptolémée. Géographia: cartes sur table. Paris: Futuropolis and BnF éditions.

Mayer, So, and Sarah Shin, eds. 2025. The Word for World: The Maps of Ursula K. Le Guin. London: Silver Press and AA Publications.

Meschiari, Matteo. 2025. Terre che non sono la mia. Una controgeografia in 111 mappe. ?: Bollati Boringhieri.

Morar, Florin-Stefan. 2025. Connected Cartographies: World Geography and the Sino-Western Translation of Knowledge, 1580–1842. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Morawski, Tommaso, and Tanja Michalsky, eds. 2025. The Mediality of Mapping: Transmedial Approaches to Space and Cartographic Imagination. Rome: Campisano Editore.

Mulligan, Paul. 2025. Irish Ordnance Survey Maps: A User’s Guide. Dublin: Wordwell Books.

Näser, Lena. 2025. Die Weltkarte des Andreas Walsperger: Kartografische Wissenskulturen um 1448. KartenRäume / Mapping Worlds, 3. Berlin: De Gruyter. •• Open access at https://uplopen.com/books/m/10.1515/9783111403656

Neutelings, Willem Jan. 2024. Around the World in 200 Globes: Stories of the Twentieth Century. Antwerp: Luster.

Niedźwiedź, Jakub, Karol Łopatecki, and Grzegorz Franczak. 2025. The Mapping of a Russian War: The Atlas of the Principality of Polatsk by Stanisław Pachołowiecki (1580). Leiden: Brill. •• Open access at https://brill.com/display/title/70686

Nyerges, Aaron. 2025. American Modernism and the Cartographic Imagination. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Petrovskaia, Natalia I. 2025. Transforming Europe in the Images of the World, 1110-1500: Fuzzy Geographies. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. •• Open access: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/97256

Raffan, James. 2025. Echo Maker: Craig Macdonald and the Lives that Produced One of Canada’s Most Significant Historical Maps. Toronto: Dundurn Press.

Rankin, William. 2025. Radical Cartography: Visual Argument in the Age of Data. New York: Viking.

Ritchie, Caroline Anjali. 2025. William Blake and the Cartographic Imagination: Maps, Diagrams, Networks. Cham, Switz.: Palgrave Macmillan/Springer Nature Link.

Samson, Maxim. 2025. Earth Shapers: How We Mapped and Mastered the World, from the Panama Canal to the Baltic Way. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Saunder, Damien. 2025. Maps on Vinyl: An Atlas of Album Covers. Volume No 1. n.p.: Cart Publishing.

Schneider, Ute. 2025. Eigentum, Bodenwert und Visualisierung: Kataster im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, 112. Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg.

Schwyzer, Philip, ed. 2025. Inventor of Britain: The Work and Legacies of Humphrey Llwyd. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.

Serchuk, Camille. 2025. Lies of the Land: Painted Maps in Late Medieval and Early Modern France. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Sevigny, Melissa L. 2023. Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon. New York: W. W. Norton.

Shannon, William D. 2024. Cumbria: 1,000 Years of Maps. Loughrigg, Cumb.: Jake Island Ltd.

Sims, Douglas W. 2025. Giacomo Gastaldi Maps the World: A General Study and Cartobibliography. River Forest, IL: The Boreas Press. •• Available from https://boreaspress.net/.

Suárez, Thomas. 2025. Palestine Mapped: From the River to the Sea in Early Geographic Thought. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press.

Talbert, Richard J. A. 2025. The Kieperts’ Asia Minor Ancient and Ottoman: Capstones of Route-Based Cartography. History of Classical Scholarship, Supplementary Volume 10. Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Venice: History of Classical Scholarship. •• Open access at https://www.hcsjournal.org/ojs/index.php/hcs/article/view/SV10.

Taylor, Jessica Lauren. 2023. Plain Paths and Dividing Lines: Navigating Native Land and Water in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.

Tomasko, Mark D. 2025. Wish You Were Here: Guidebooks, Viewbooks, Photobooks, and Maps of New York City 1807–1940. Chicago: University of Chicago Press for the Grolier Club.

Updike, Daniel Berkeley. [1922, 1937] 2025. Printing Types: Their History, Forms & Use. A Study in Survivals. Ed. Nicholas Rougeux. Digital edition. Originally, 2 vols., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1922; 2nd ed., 1937. https://www.c82.net/printing-types/.

Wigen, Kären, ed. 2025. Territorial Imaginaries: Beyond the Sovereign Map. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Young, Paul M. 2025. The U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Intelligence Community: 100 Years of Mapping and Remote Sensing Collaboration, 1879–1979. USGS Circular 1552. Washington, DC: GPO. •• Open access at https://doi.org/10.3133/cir1552.

Zwer, Nepthys. 2024. Pour un spatio-féminisme: De l’espace à la carte. Paris: La Découverte.