The Seattle General Strike by Robert L. Friedheim.

North America’s first general strike was notable for its’ peaceful character and orderliness. For five days in 1919, despite shutting down all of Seattle, “not a single striker or antistrike partisan was arrested on any charge related to the strike. In fact, the usual police docket of about one hundred cases a day fell to about thirty during the strike.” (Friedheim, p. 125). In addition, strike organizers were careful to maintain essential services in the city. “No one starved or lacked heat; no children had to do without milk; no sick or injured were denied hospital care.” (Friedheim, p. 126).

Friedheim’s The Seattle General Strike is a thorough study of this remarkable event. The author makes sure his readers understand the zeitgeist of that time period, the structure of the Seattle American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the issues of the strike. While the reading may be at times ponderous, one will obtain an in-depth understanding acquired through toil over the details.

Surprisingly, in spite of meticulous illustration of the facts, Friedheim ignores the important and glaring issue of racism within the Seattle unions. He mentions racial issues regarding lynching (Friedheim, p. 7) and voting (Friedheim, p. 168). He even discusses participation of Japanese unions (Friedheim, p. 124). These inclusions make his omission more perplexing. The relationship of African American workers to Seattle labor was complex. As noted by Jon Wright, “many African American workers…were barred from entering unions” managed by Seattle’s AFL. Conversely, the International Workers of the World (IWW), who actively participated in the strike, “did not discriminate on the basis of race.” During the strike, 300 self-organized African Americans from the longshoremen’s union participated, while others hoped that the strike would lead to an open (non-union) shop in the shipyards that would permit African American employment.**

Friedheim, while clearly liberal, is not starry-eyed. He criticizes the Seattle AFL’s “unqualified support of the Bolshevik Revolution” as equal to their reactionary “opponents in depth of feeling and lack of objectivity.” (Friedheim, p. 16). National AFL vociferously opposed revolution. Above all, Friedheim is a pragmatist. Statements and actions which he sees as counter-productive to labor’s goals are disapproved. “Leaflets urging workers to confiscate the means of production,” generated independently of the Strike Committee, are represented as frightening the public.  (Friedheim, p. 101). “Radicals,” who generate such literature, are juxtaposed against “Progressives,” presented as the primary organizers who must logistically counter such propaganda.

In his conclusions, Professor Friedheim lists the successes and failures of the strike. While presenting the image of an effective striking organization maintaining peace and order in the city, he patiently delineates their failures in terms of obtaining the $6.00 wage demanded by shipyard workers and losing the propaganda war with the established Seattle business and political machinery. After the strike, 39 workers are rounded-up on sedition charges that do not stick in court. But what does stick is the perception that “the strike was an unsuccessful Bolshevist revolution…Northwest lore that has persisted.” (Friedheim, p. 147). He even claims that “the Seattle general strike helped condition the American people to accept extreme measures against aliens, dissenters and left-wingers, in what would become a year-long Red Scare.” (Friedheim, p. 169).  Here the author fails to put the strike in historical perspective: The US public had begun fearing Bolshevik revolution with the victory of the Russian Red Army in 1917. There is a trajectory from that event to the first Red Scare, which was a direct result of coordinated leftist bombings through the mail on June 2, 1919. The general strike may have minimally reinforced citizen’s fears of Bolshevism. But the Russian Revolution and the 1919 bombings were perceived by the public as far more tangible threats.  It was in this atmosphere that the peacefulness of the first general strike in US history was painted-over as a Bolshevik revolution. Even today, the memory of its positive attributes is resurrected only in the minds of intrepid readers of obscure, dusty books.

Friedheim, Robert L. The Seattle General Strike. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1964.

** Wright, Jon. "Seattle General Strike: Seattle’s African American Community." Seattle General Strike Project. 1999. Web. 14 Nov. 2015. <http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/strike/wright.shtml>.

Intertwined Lives. Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle. By Lois Banner.

Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict were two of the most important influences on anthropology during their lifetimes. Many know of Mead’s popular writings in this subject area, particularly her Coming of Age in Samoa. She had an important impact on the US populations views during a time when news agencies and popular magazines went to experts for opinions on events and phenomena, rather than using a now more prevalent “man-on-the-street” approach to reporting. Fewer people are familiar with Ruth Benedict, who has been recognized by most academics as the successor of Franz Boas (founder of modern US anthropology), and the first woman president of the American Anthropological Association. The fact that the careers of these two women began before women had the vote, during a time when many of their colleagues thought of women as mentally inferior to men, is a testament to their determination and ability.

The relationship between these two women is fascinating for their individual brilliance, as well as their intellectual influence on each other. Banner spends a great deal of time discussing how they communicated around their ideas and edited each other’s work. In addition, the author discusses the people, (friends and foes), who surrounded these two women as part of the social circle of international anthropology. The depiction of this circle provides a rich portrait of an expanding field of human exploration and the personalities that molded it.

Prior to Intertwined Lives, there was some controversy concerning whether or not Mead and Benedict had a sexual relationship. While there are still some deniers, Banner’s study is “the first biographical account of the lives of these two women to draw on all their papers.” This author had access to love letters that previous generations of researchers did not. Large portions of their private writing had been “restricted until their close friends and associates had died,” which is a standard practice. (Banner, p. ix). Professor Banner quotes passages of letters like this where Benedict writes “How little the lovemaking solved in our feeling for each other,” which clearly show a sexual component to the relationship. (Banner, p. 272). While the author discusses Mead and Benedict’s five year sexual relationship, she does not present it as the central feature of their bond. It is one element which occurred early in a deep friendship that spanned 24 years, involving a great deal of personal support and impelling mutual scholarly influence.

At times, Banner is too psychoanalytical. She states that Benedict “felt peaceful with Margaret, who rested her “like a padded chair and a fireplace.” Our biographer adds “that image suggests domestic tranquility, but it also suggests domination, for it was fathers who sat in armchairs in front of fireplaces.” (Banner, p. 185). Benedict’s feeling of tranquility is clear. Banner injects her own Freudian gloss which has questionable merit. This over-analysis is not limited to the relationship between the two subjects. Professor Banner later describes a painting in the childhood home of Margaret’s second husband, Gregory Bateson; a watercolor by Blake that shows Eve with the Serpent and Satan: “being an angel, Satan has no genitals of his own. Did Gregory think of himself as a devil with women, as an ambiguous male who was both powerless and all-powerful?” (Banner, p. 346). Okay, Bateson did dream about this watercolor for years, but it would have been a disturbing, memorable image in any child’s home. The author’s interpretation is a reach. Freudian psychoanalysis was a fashion during the lives of these scientists. They spent many hours and letters discussing the psyche with intricate fabrication. But we do not have to. The factual information is enough.

Anyone expecting these independent female leaders in anthropology to have 21^st Century notions concerning women or LGBT people, are in for a disappointment. While neither viewed being lesbian or gay as harmful to society, they both saw this characteristic as abnormal. “In Mead’s cultural scheme, homosexuals are more maladjusted than heterosexuals” because they have given-up “the drive to procreate.” (Banner, p. 356). Benedict saw “homosexuality…as an abnormality shaped by society.” (Banner, p. 274). There were a few individuals who thought that being LGB or T was equal in health to heterosexuality (Magnus Hirschfeld in the 1890s comes to mind), but they were a tiny minority. Mead’s views on women deserve special attention for their controversial nature. While “feminists of the 1970s…claim her as their forerunner,” Betty Friedan “identified her as the architect of the back-to-the-home movement of the 1950s.” (Banner, p. 364). Banner, herself a professor of History, Women’s Studies and Gender Studies, reports both the progressive and regressive opinions of her two anthropologists with the forgiving equanimity of a historian who understands that we are all a product of our times and cultures.

As a responsible biographer, Lois Banner has marshaled a voluminous quantity of material by and about her subjects. It is undoubtedly more demanding to create a dual biography, rather than focusing on one individual, but the rewards are also great. In addition to creating a unique record of a relationship, revealing the immense intellectual spark that they collectively produced, there is the value of comparative research. In the author’s own words, “Benedict and Mead both believed that the comparative anthropology of several societies offered insights into all of them; similarly, comparing the biographies of two individuals can shed light on each of them.” (Banner, p. 11). Banner shares this complexity of information with an elegant style as fluid as conversation, intertwining their stories as these two women intertwined their lives.

Banner, Lois W. Intertwined Lives. Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.

The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters by John Gross.

The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters is a history of literary criticism in Great Britain. A pause is necessary to observe the overproduction of criticism. We not only have critics whose purpose it is to examine, in excruciating detail, the poetry and prose which should be dedicated to pleasure; but we also have an additional layer of historian critics like Gross, who study past critics, who studied the writers.  John Gross is aware of this professional excess. He asks “how can anyone who tries to keep up with Wordsworthian studies find time to read Wordsworth?” This reviewer admits that he is not making the process any less confounded. His brain twists as he critically reviews a book, which critically reviews the critics, who critically reviewed the writers of literature.  In spite of this problem, it is the author’s job, as a literary historian, to record and interpret history. The lives of the critics and the development of the British periodical press is history. Additionally, it is the job of the reviewer to review books. So, amusingly and vertiginously, on we go. Of note, some social and political criticism is included by the historic critics explored here, but the primary object of study, in this tome, is literature.

John Gross offers a chronological trek of mini-biographies, which begin in 1802 with Lord Jeffrey of the “Edinburgh Review,” and end in 1936 with F.R. Leavis. His epilogue quickly catches the reader up to Gross’s “present time,” 1969, when Rise and Fall was published. Be warned that this is an advanced course in literary criticism. For most general non-fiction and history enthusiasts, (this reviewer included), the history of literary criticism is unexplored terrain. A novice is expected to tread water or sink. But, as someone who has gone through the process, this is not a bad way to learn. It’s much like getting lost in a foreign city. As long as one walks unafraid through the unknown, and is open to experiencing an entirely new area, the opportunity for learning is great. If this form of self-education appeals to a reader, then she will find, upon looking-up from Gross’s exploration, that many hours have been lost in the reverie of discovering history previously unmapped by the explorer. Thankfully, we have our internet as a compass. Gross does cover well-known writers (Carlyle, Mill, Arnold, etc.) but one will come across numerous obscure personalities or publications which will require a google.

Apologies to my feminist readers: the subjects are exclusively “men” of letters. There was, between 1800 and 1930, a strong women’s periodical press in Britain. There were women writing as journalists and critics. But Gross does not cover them. To make the situation as comical as it may be infuriating to those conversant regarding gender discrimination, women are almost exclusively mentioned in conjunction with the men in their lives. Virginia Woolf is seen primarily as the daughter of Leslie Stephen. Katherine Mansfield is only mentioned as John Middleton Murray’s lover. Queenie Leavis doesn’t even get a first name, let alone a mini-biography. She was a formidable critic in her own right who is relegated to the anonymity of being a “Mrs. Leavis.”Only George Eliot is praised as a genius writer. Even so, she does not rate a mini-biography for her critical works. The excuse of “well…it was 1969” is not a good one. Our relegated Virginia Woolf wrote A Room of One’s Own, on women and writing, in 1929. “The Woman Question,” or women’s place in the literary world, had been debated in the academy since the 1950s, then radically advocated since 1962 with the publication of The Feminine Mystique. John Gross could hardly been unaware of these trends. There is a 1991 revision of Rise and Fall, to which I do not have access. It purports to include “updates on several literary careers”* If a reader can tell me that it also includes a highly expanded coverage of the role of women, I will happily withdraw my objection.

While the absence of women diminishes the study, it does not diminish the individual portraits or the author’s able coloring of lives. Alice Walker once described her process with The Color Purple where she spent a summer sitting in a field, calling up the images of her characters in her mind and having conversations with them as a way to get to know them. In this way, she said, her “summer passed in a blaze of joy.” Similarly, if one appreciates being introduced to obscure and idiosyncratic critics, their reading will also pass in a blaze of joy.

Gross, John. The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1969.

*"The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters: English Literary Life Since 1800 First Paperback Edition Edition." Amazon.com: The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters: English Literary Life Since 1800 (9781566630009): John Gross: Books. Amazon.com, n.d. Web. 22 Aug. 2015.

The Imperfect Value of History. Reflections From Miller.

There are no certain ways to predict outcomes of policies or trends in human society. No scientific tests. But one element we have to instruct us is experience of the past. Undeniably, this is a flawed resource. Interpretations differ, some information cannot be recovered and future human behavior is unpredictable. But, if we witness incidents recurring, political acts producing similar results, we at least have some minimal guidance.

In 1794, the major parties were the Federalists and the Republicans.  That year, the US signed Jay’s Treaty with Great Britain. This treaty upset Britain’s chief enemy of the time, revolutionary France, who “retaliated by withdrawing its minister from Philadelphia…and seizing [US] shipping on the high seas.” When the Federalist President, John Adams, sent a delegation to Paris, they were “approached by agents (designated in the American minister’s dispatches as X, Y and Z) of Talleyrand, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who demanded a bribe for the Directory and a loan to France as prerequisites to negotiations…it was a fatal miscalculation: the XYZ Correspondence was published by the United States government; the country was swept by an unexampled wave of patriotic feeling.” (Miller, p. 4).

Since Republicans had favored an alliance with France over Great Britain, they found themselves in an unpopular position. Reading the national sentiment, the Federalists decided to capitalize. They claimed that there was a “French faction” in the US, and that the “political allegiance of the Republican party and this French faction were identical.” All things French became suspect. “Jacobins were everywhere…Even children’s books must be scanned…Jacobins were seeking to corrupt the younger generation.” Republicans were accused of taking “orders directly from the [French] Directory.” (Miller, pp. 11-13).

Feeling their advantage, the Federalists proposed the Alien and Sedition Acts. In brief, these acts permitted US officials to both eject foreigners considered to be undermining the US, and suppress free speech by citizens and newspapers thought to be critical of the federal government. These acts were signed into law by President Adams in 1798.

This campaign to tar Republicans with the brush of Jacobinism, along with a paranoiac fear of foreigners felt by the populace and encouraged by the Federalists, will remind careful readers of other events in US history. During the first Red Scare in 1919 (aka the Palmer Raids), union and leftist offices were ransacked by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer’s agents, as punishment for exercising their rights of free speech and assembly. At that time, over 5,000 foreign-born citizens were deported from the US. During the second Red Scare (aka the McCarthy Era), purges of US citizens from institutions as broadly different as Hollywood and the US Army occurred. In each of the two Red Scares, the label “Bolshevism” was applied to our country’s alleged, foreign-allied enemies, in the same way that “Jacobinism” was applied to Republicans in 1798. In each of the two Red Scares, the charge that traitorous Americans were taking orders from Moscow, mirrored the 1798 accusation that Republicans were taking orders from Paris.

While repetition of occurrences in  history does not  guarantee identical recurrences in the future, it does indicate behavior of which we  should observe with concern. It  is helpful to have a grasp of historical events. In this way, when a demagogic individual or group arises again and asserts that we should persecute foreign-born citizens, repress freedom of speech or otherwise make decisions based upon fear, we will  have the information to resist infringements on Constitutional Rights. History is  not  a science; it is only memory. Memory is an imperfect quality and predictor. But if it is one of  the faculties we possess to examine societies, we should use it.

Miller, John C. Crisis in Freedom. The Alien and Sedition Acts. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1951.

Secular vs Religious University Education in the Eighteenth Century German States. From Watson.

In the German states, prior to 1734, university teaching was dominated by Catholic and Protestant proponents of Christian education. Since the purpose of religious education is to preserve a particular sect’s understanding of the world, little was done to encourage new learning. “Teaching methods were backward. The norm was the teaching of static truths, not new ideas; professors were not expected to produce new knowledge.” (Watson, p. 50).

The year 1734 is significant because that is the year that the University of Gottingen was founded with Gerlach Adolph von Munchhausen as its Kurator. “Munchhausen ensured that theology played a relatively quiet role. Gottingen became the  first university to  restrict the  theological faculty’s traditional right of censorship…By this enlightened measure, Gottingen’s freedom to think, write and publish, became unparalleled in Germany.” (Watson, p. 51). In addition, Munchhausen encouraged the teaching of non-theological courses. The subjects of physics, politics, natural history, mathematics, history, geography, art and modern languages, flourished.

With a broader definition of education, which included topics that required research and the expansion of knowledge rather than the repeating of old dogma, Gottingen found it necessary to introduce a new structured environment to convey learning. In addition to the lecture, the traditional way a professor imparts established wisdom, Gottingen initiated the seminar. Revolutionary for its time, the seminar allowed a group of interested students, with a professor, to discuss their ideas and research. Seminars were conducted in smaller rooms to invite exchange, rather than in lecture halls. That the student was perceived to have individual thoughts and ideas for exploration, which might contribute to a general pool of knowledge, was itself an innovative idea.

An emphasis on original research began to evolve for both students and faculty. Students’ research evolved into the PhD dissertation. Likewise, faculty were not just freed, but expected, to perform and publish original research. The first German professional academic journals were developed at Gottingen for communicating the research of professors. Previously, the main way that a professor could contribute to the literature of knowledge was by adding glosses in the margins of traditionally accepted works.

Though Gottingen was the first German university to employ these techniques, their superiority over pre-existing static forms became apparent over time. The methods employed by Gottingen expanded to other universities. These universities created “a new stratum in German society” which “achieved a prominent position in Germany by means of its domination of the state bureaucracy, the church, the military, the professoriate, and the professions. The self-understanding of this new stratum, which more than any other group helped account for the revival of German culture, set it apart from the traditional, more commercial middle class…a German intelligentsia.” (Watson, p. 54).

What followed was a reading revolution and the notion that learning was a lifelong pursuit. This thirst for learning created a golden age of German science, technology, thought and arts, which persisted for almost two centuries. None of this would have been possible without the initial vision to restrict the religious domination of learning and emphasis on dogma. It is a lesson for all of us that when we remove the bonds of religious education, we make room for knowledge, innovation and the expansiveness of secular education.

Watson, Peter. The German Genius. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2010.

Baader-Meinhof. The Inside Story of the RAF by Stefan Aust.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the majority of college students in West Germany opposed their government’s complicity with the US war in Vietnam and support of totalitarian regimes in developing nations. This resulted in protests against German foreign policy, which were accompanied by police violence against protesters. On June 2, 1967, during a particularly brutal police riot, Detective Karl-Heinz Kurras shot a pacifist protester named Benno Ohnesorg who had been beaten into unconsciousness. This was a lynchpin event for the formation of the Baader-Meinhof Complex, later known as the Red Army Faction (RAF). While most students subsequently chose to continue non-violent activism against West German/NATO international activity, a small cadre of activists began organizing an urban terrorist campaign.

Stefan Aust’s Baader-Meinhof. The Inside Story of the RAF is a thoroughly engrossing read. It is difficult to remain impassive when faced with terrorist and state violence, stories of life underground, and the zeitgeist of a tumultuous era.  In addition to the dramatic history it portrays, this book elucidates the ideas and values that produced this organization, as told by a professional reporter. Reporters who write histories tend to employ some of the traits they would use in their news-writing: attempting to grab the reader right away with action and verbs. While Aust occasionally falls victim to this habit at the outset, he does settle-down to write a more sober chronology as the book progresses.

Baader-Meinhof follows the evolution of this organization from its 1967 inception to the announcement of its disbanding in 1998. It presents both events of that time and biographies of individuals within and without the RAF. The prodigious number of individuals presented can be confusing. There is an extensive, useful index, to which the reader may refer when a previously introduced but forgotten person reappears in the record. A quick reference glossary of individuals involved, would have been helpful.

Throughout the book, Aust struggles to remain intellectually balanced about the time and the RAF. But he was a student activist and writer on college newspapers during this period. He had met many of the members of the Baader-Meinhof group prior to their going underground. Additionally, two RAF members planned to shoot Aust after he helped liberate Ulrike Meinhoff’s twin daughters from a Palestinian camp and return them to their father (Aust, pp 75-78). The reader will promptly see how his perspective is colored by events and politics about which he still has strong opinions. Aust favored the goals of non-violent protesters of his generation. He abhors the activities of the Baader-Meinhof group, whom he characterizes as “terrorists” and compares to Islamist terrorists in our generation (Aust, p. xii). As a result, it is up to the reader to play the part of dispassionate, quasi-scientific historian, where the writer cannot.

As a written work, Baader-Meinhoff resides in a nether region between primary and secondary historical source. Some of the information is the product of research about the past. Enmeshed among the details is the attempt of an informed participant to come to terms with his own development. One may obtain knowledge concerning the era discussed if one is capable of parsing these elements. It is valuable to examine both the flow of events and how a writer of a given time sees those events. Stefan Aust provides one with this challenge and opportunity.

Aust, Stefan. Baader-Meinhof. The Inside Story of the RAF. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2009.

Great Maps by Jerry Brotton.

In this modern era, we have learned to see maps as directional guides accurately depicting locations of, and distances between, point A and point B. But throughout history, this use has not always been the norm. Jerry Brotton is Professor of Renaissance Studies at London’s Queen Mary University. He discusses maps as “a graphic representation that presents a spatial understanding of things, concepts or events in the human world.” When one looks at Brotton’s chosen maps, one quickly sees his point. A medieval European map, circa 1300 AD, shows Jerusalem at its center, Central Asia as populated by cannibals, and Africa as a significantly smaller continent populated by mythical animals and people. It even provides a physical location for the Garden of Eden, at northernmost point in the world. Christ is represented “At the top of the map, outside terrestrial time and space.” (Brotton, pp. 58-9). This representation reveals a medieval culture where Christianity was central and understanding of other peoples or places outside Europe was limited. Brotton presents a wide array of designs from Europe to China; from Paleolithic petroglyphs knapped onto outcroppings to Google Earth. In each, he examines what the cartographer is trying to say about the world, given her social, political or cultural perspective.

While insights are important, this is a book of visual displays. It is an opportunity for the eye as well as the mind. Both author and publisher reveal an understanding of this in their selected layout. Great Maps is a colorful, high gloss, large format (10 inch by 12 inch) presentation of attractive images. Its sixty-four maps represent the aesthetic values of numerous cultures. There is even a map that hangs in New York’s Museum of Modern Art. (Brotton, p. 232). Individual examples are given a two-page canvas, permitting the widest possible view of the topic. This view is followed by another two-page “visual tour” where Professor Brotton highlights interesting portions on the map and what they reveal. This variety and format encourages a reader to set aside time for the quiet enjoyment of a slow, relaxed perusal.

Brotton’s analysis is socio-politically progressive, as represented by some of his selections. Henry Schenck Tanner’s 1839 “Indian Territory” map was “consulted by the US Congress as they planned the various stages of Native American removal.” Today it is a useful chronicle of stolen land. (Brotton, p. 190). Edwin Hergesheimer, an abolitionist, created a US slave population map, showing the distribution of the United States’ 4 million slaves in 1861. (Brotton, p. 194). Charles Booth’s 1898 cartogram of London contains color-coding which shows income levels in the city’s neighborhoods, designed to reveal the extent of poverty. (Brotton, p. 204). David Livingstone’s 1873 Map of Africa is presented in context of the “Scramble for Africa” by European powers. (Brotton, p. 201). Many exploration maps were commissioned by businesses or governments, intending to exploit the land and resources of others. As beautiful as the maps are, they often represent less-than-beautiful aspects of human behavior.

There are some notable scholarly lapses contained in this volume.  In his discussion of Portolan Charts (illustrations for sailing that show shorelines and ports), Brotton states that it is “almost as though the technique for producing this kind of chart emerged out of nowhere.” (Brotton, p. 53). History is a discipline dedicated to uncovering the trajectory of human development. Saying that a technology appears to have emerged out of nowhere, does not substitute for the responsibility of presenting what we do know about its origins. Later, the author describes surgeon and cartographer John Snow as “pioneering the use of surgical anesthesia.” (Brotton, p. 193). This is a careless statement that leads one to believe that Snow introduced this innovation. Anesthesia has a history that pre-dates Snow by 300 years. Paracelsus first experimented with Ether on animals in 1525. Regarding Snow’s chosen substance, Chloroform, Francis Brodie Imlach was using it on patients six years before our cartographer used it with Queen Victoria. In both the example of Portolan Charts and that of John Snow, more patient research should have been employed.

The area where Brotton excels is as a tour guide for these maps. He has spent a great deal of time examining them quadrant by quadrant. His “visual tour” sections help make sense of complex designs, revealing what is important. Many of the maps do not conform to the style of a modern atlas. These can be disorienting to the novice. Brotton’s expert navigation is useful in such circumstances.

Brotton, Jerry. Great Maps. New York: DK Publishing, 2014.