Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks (39 page)

20
hundreds of other:
David Woodward and G. Malcolm Lewis,
The History of Cartography,
vol. 2, book 3 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998),
p. 4
.

21
“cognitive map” was first coined:
By the Berkeley behavioral psychologist Edward Tolman.

21
animals can perform:
Many of these wayfinding examples are drawn from Colin Ellard,
You Are Here: Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon but Get Lost in the Mall
(New York: Doubleday, 2009). The shear water anecdote is the subject of Rosario Mazzeo, “Homing of the Manx Shearwater,”
The Auk
70, no. 2 (April 1953),
pp. 200
–201.

22
The frillfin goby:
Stéphan Reebs,
Fish Behavior in the Aquarium and in the Wild
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001),
p. 84
.

24
both dogs and chimpanzees:
This experiment was first performed by Emil Menzel at SUNY–Stony Brook. See “Chimpanzee spatial memory organization,”
Science
182, no. 4115 (November 30, 1973), pp. 943–945.

26
“laid out like a map”:
“Log of Glenn’s Historic Day Circling Globe,”
Chicago Daily Tribune,
Feb. 21, 1962.

26
allegorical maps:
Many of these beautiful maps are reproduced in Katharine Harmon,
You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Architectural Press, 2003). Matt Groening’s homage is found in the largest book I own:
Kramer’s Ergot 7
(Oakland, Calif.: Buenaventura Press, 2008).

30
“Third Culture Kids”:
“Third Culture Kids: Focus of Major Study,”
Newslinks
12, no. 3 (January 1993),
p. 1
. Now that the president of the United States is himself a TCK, the term seems a little less exotic.

31
“To be rooted”:
Simone Weil,
The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Toward Mankind
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1955),
p. 42
.

CHAPTER 3: FAULT

32
“To the people of Bolivia!”:
Steve Neal, “A Casual Approach Amid Controversy,”
Chicago Tribune,
Jan. 9, 1983.

32
David Helgren sprang:
The best account of Helgren’s fateful brush with fame is the article he himself wrote on the subject: “Place Name Ignorance Is National News,”
Journal of Geography
82 (July–August 1983),
pp. 176
–178.

35
kidnapped a young woman:
This was the notorious Gary Steven Krist case. His victim, Barbara Jane Mackle, lived to retell the story in her book
83
Hours till Dawn
(New York: Doubleday, 1971).

36
Nouvelle Géographie:
Quoted in “Old Maps and New,”
Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine
94, no. 577 (November 1863), pp. 540–553.

37
Henry Kissinger told:
In
Years of Renewal
(New York: Touchstone, 1999),
p. 72
, quoted in de Blij,
Why Geography Matters,
p. 13
.

37
“Over the last”:
www.snopes.com/politics/obama/57states.asp
.

37
“the importance of”:
Lourdes Heredia, “Spain Puzzled by McCain Comments,” BBC News, Sept. 18, 2008.

37
Africa was a country:
Frank Rich, “The Moose Stops Here,”
The New York Times,
Nov. 16, 2008.

38
Al Franken’s favorite:
A YouTube search for “al franken map” will return at least three such clips, spanning over twenty years.

38
“I personally believe”:
Rebecca Traister, “Miss Dumb Blond USA?,”
Salon.com
, Aug. 29, 2007. Upton later spun her geographical ignorance
into a contestant spot on CBS’s globetrotting reality show
The Amazing Race
; she and her boyfriend, Brent, finished third.

39
“in the great majority”:
Andrew Dickson White,
Autobiography,
vol. 1 (New York: Century, 1905),
p. 258
.

39
“Geographic illiterates”:
Howard Wilson, “Americans Held Lax on Geography,”
The New York Times,
Jan. 2, 1942.

39
1950 study:
Kenneth J. Williams, “A Survey of the Knowledge of Incoming Students in College Geography,”
Journal of Geography
51, no. 4 (April 1952),
pp. 157
–162.

41
fifteenth-anniversary follow-up:
“Fifteen Year Follow-up Geography Skills Test Administered in Indiana, 1987 and 2002,”
Journal of Geography
108, no. 1 (January 2009),
pp. 30
–36.

41
recent National Geographic polls:
The National Geographic Society and Roper conduct these polls and wag their fingers at America every four years or so; the most recent findings can be perused at
www.national geographic.com/roper2006/findings.html
.

42
in nine different countries:
National Geographic–Roper 2002 Global Geographic Literary Survey,
www.nationalgeographic.com/geosurvey2002
.

42
“Just a conspiracy”:
Tom Stoppard,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
(New York: Grove, 1967),
p. 108
.

43
made geopolitics seem:
de Blij,
Why Geography Matters,
pp. 15
, 45.

43
Arthur Jay Klinghoffer:
Arthur Jay Klinghoffer,
The Power of Projections: How Maps Reflect Global Politics and History
(Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2006),
p. 126
.

43
children have it worst:
These statistics are drawn from the books that have been written on today’s hypercushioned, outdoors-hating children, especially Lenore Skenazy,
Free Range Kids: Giving Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009) and Richard Louv,
Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder
(Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin, 2005), and their associated websites.

44
A mom in Columbus:
“The Walk Felt ’Round the World,”
The Commercial Dispatch,
Mar. 23, 2009.

45
adult recruits’ parents:
Nancy Gibbs, “The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting,”
Time,
Nov. 20, 2009.

45
measures of outdoor activity:
Oliver Pergams and Patricia A. Zaradic, “Evidence for a Fundamental and Pervasive Shift Away from Nature-Based Recreation,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
105, no. 7 (February 19, 2008), pp. 2295–2300.

45
panicked:
Craig Lambert, “Nonstop,”
Harvard Magazine,
March–April 2010.

45
British moms now refuse:
Julie Henry, “Countryside Ban for Children Because Mums Cannot Read Maps and Hate Mud,”
The Daily Telegraph,
Feb. 20, 2010.

45
“Geography is an earthly subject”:
James Prior,
Memoir of the Life and Character of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke,
vol. 1 (London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1826), p. 512.

46
“Geography is not a university subject!”:
David N. Livingstone,
The Geographical Tradition: Episodes in the History of a Contested Enterprise
(Oxford, England: Blackwell, 1992), p. 311.

47
“All maps distort reality”:
Mark Monmonier,
How to Lie with Maps
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. xi.

49
“You think”:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
Émile
(London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1762/1911),
p. 74
.

49
“I know of no other”:
Peirce Lewis, “Beyond Description,”
Annals of the Association of American Geographers
75, no. 4 (December 1985), pp. 465–477.

50
“until every hamlet”:
“Old Maps and New,” p. 540.

51
In 2008, a survey:
“Cool Survey Results from Nokia Maps Guys,” Nokia “Conversations” blog,
http://conversations.nokia.com/2008/11/26/cool-survey-results-from-nokia-maps-guys/
.

51
Jessica Lynch:
Richard Serrano and Mark Fineman, “Army Describes What Went Wrong for Jessica Lynch’s Unit,”
Los Angeles Times,
Jul. 10, 2003.

51
“graphicacy”:
“Graphicacy Should Be the Fourth Ace in the Pack,”
The Cartographer
3, no. 1 (June 1966),
pp. 23
–28.

52
Jerome Bruner complained:
In Search of Pedagogy,
vol. 1 (New York: Routledge, 2006),
p. 36
.

53
“Its meanings have shifted”:
Robert Harbison,
Eccentric Spaces
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1977/2000),
p. 124
.

55
more than $100 million:
“Geography Catches Up,” National Geographic press release, July 14, 2005.

CHAPTER 4: BENCHMARKS

56
“This information”:
Barry Lopez, “The Mappist,” in
Light Action in the Caribbean
(New York: Knopf, 2000),
p. 159
.

58
“River of Doubt”:
This ill-fated expedition—the only time, as far as I know, that a U.S. president has defeated flesh-eating bacteria—is fascinatingly detailed in Candice Millard,
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey
(New York: Anchor, 2006).

59
Zelig
-like role:
The Snow and Normandy maps, among many others,
can be seen in Jeremy Harwood,
To the Ends of the Earth: 100 Maps That Changed the World
(Newton Abbot, Devon: Davis & Charles, 2006).

59
The
Apollo 11
crew pored:
John Noble Wilford,
The Mapmakers
(New York: Vintage, 2000), p. 427.

59
the library’s very first shipment:
Ralph E. Ehrenberg,
Library of Congress Geography and Maps: An Illustrated Guide
(Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1996).

60
“cover for small detachments”:
Mark Monmonier,
How to Lie with Maps
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996),
p. 127
.

60
783 feet by 383 feet:
James R. Akerman and Robert W. Karrow, Jr., eds.,
Maps: Finding Our Place in the World
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007),
p. 156
. The only completely blank USGS map in the Great Salt Lake is, I believe, 41112C6, known as “Rozel Point SW,” but there are several others that show only a single train trestle or boundary line.