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Hello Tim,

My favorite book on the history of maps is by Lloyd A. Brown, "The Story of
Maps", Boston 1949. A cheap reprint from Dover is available.

Despite the fact that this scholarly book is over 50 years old, it's probably
still the best and most comprehensive one on the general history of map making.
If I am wrong and there is a newer one (any European language), I would like to
hear from the list, please.

Chapter 5 is on "Charts and the Haven-Finding Art". For this alone, I would
recommend the book as being of interest re charts. Chap. 7 is on "Latitude" and
chap. 8 on "Longitude". After reading the latter, you will find redundant much
of what has been written in some newer books under the same title.

For a book exclusively dealing with charts, see Peter Whitfield, "The Charting
of the Oceans", The British Library, 1996. It has lots of pretty pictures (the
author is in the business of reproducing old maps). The text focuses more on the
cultural-historical rather than technical aspects of maritime maps.

For the technical side you might check the relevant chapters of various Moore
and Bowditch.editions, e.g. 1802 (as always, with worked example!), 1909 (with a
description of a theodolite), 1962 (60 pages on hydrography, with photographs of
instruments, description of chart production methods, etc). The superficial
treatment of the subject in the 1995 edition probably represents adequately the
current efforts in charting in the USA.

Regards

Herbert Prinz

Tim Whelan wrote:

> Can anyone recommend a book like The Mapmakers, but is more focused on
> nautical charts?

   

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