Friday, April 22, 2005

"Atlas of the Medieval World" by Rosamond McKitterick



Oxford University Press 2004.

Beautifully illustrated, the maps themselves are often good, but sometimes I found them to be a bit overly busy and complex. Perhaps medieval history was in reality a bit of a jumbled up mess, the book does tend to give that impression.

If you want to learn how to present complex information well, Edward Tufte's book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition is the classic. Here's a great map of Napolean's Russian campaign, discussed in Tufte's book and on his web site: www.edwardtufte.com

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