MAPHEAD

By: LaDrea Ford

Strong Reactions

Disagree

Agree

"When he died, he left behind the work on which he'd spent over 20 years" (Jennings 106).

"The north face of Mount Everest, one of the least hospitable places on the planet, was completely untouched by human hands until 1921" (Jennings 149).

I think that he should have left his work with family where they could copyright and publish it for him so that no one could possibly copy his work.

I agree with this because the mountain wasn't touched until 1921 because they found out that this mountain would never erupt.

"In London on a whim, I bought my first antique map: a colorful 1850 John Tallis map of Ceylon, with five beautifully decorated vignettes full of ruined temples and palm trees in the corner" (Jennings 104).

"Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, with its famous treasure map, would never have been written if not for Stevenson's young stepson Lloyd, who passed a rainy summer painting watercolor maps with his stepfather in their Scottish cottage" (Jennings 108).

I agree with this because most ideas that are made started from a kid with a dream. And Stevenson's son is a prime example of this, and how he made a map then his dad used it to describe Peter Pan's, Neverland.

I don't agree with this because I personally wouldn't want to buy an old map.

"The oldest surviving road atlases were designed to keep people from having to go anywhere at all" (Jennings 1480.

"These contestants appear in a televised final round ending with the crowning of a lone champion, who receives a $25,000, college scholarship and "lifetime membership in the Nation Geographic Society" (Jennings 125).

I don't agree with this because people need to be able to go to different places to get things and they cant just stay in one place.

This is a great amount of money for a scholarship and can help these kids pay off their tuition.

Conclusion

Background Info

I rate this book a 2/5 because it was an easy read but at the time it was really boring to me. There was a story that went along with it, but I just don't like reading about different types of maps.

Who is he?

Ken Jennings

Why is he an expert?

He is considered an expert because he won the popular game show Jeopardy.

Other famous books?

No other books.

Important People

Author's Purpose

The purpose of the text was to give information on what Mapheads were, and what they do, and also information on the different types of maps that can be found around the world.

Charles Darwin:

"That one map led to his lifelong interest in exploration and science, during which he helped Darwin develop the theory of evolution" (Jennings 10).

David Helgren:

"He started doing in-service training for teachers and then founded a center for geographic education at San Jose State, where he taught for the next 2 decades" (Jennings 54).

Leonard Rothman:

"Leonard Rothman, a longtime Annapolis gynecologist who retired to California a decade ago..." (Jennings 96).

"Detail from Vermeer's 1657 Officer and Laughing Girl. Would you care for a little painting with your map, Mr. Vermeer" (Jennings 100).

This quote is an example of the author's purpose because it shows different types of maps and the designs that they can include with it. This map for example comes in the style with the picture in front of it.

"The fateful word on the Waldseemulelr map. America finally releases its long-form birth certificate, proving that the continent wasn't born in Indonesia or Kenya" (Jennings 76).

This quote is an example of the author's purpose because it describes a type of map, that was one of the first maps to be made.

Quotes and reasoning.

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"The first south-up world map, published by Stuart McArthur in 1979" (Jennings 53).

This quote is an example of the author's purpose, because it is describing a type of map that is not common to most people and its one of the most unique maps around today.

"The Mercator and Gall-Peters: Greenland's favorite and least favorite map projections, respectively" (Jennings 223).

This quote is an example of the author's purpose because it is explaining two different types of projections of maps that are help and then not as helpful.

"The Earth, overlaid with its antipodal version. Very few spots are sandwich-friendly in both hemispheres" (Jennings 241).

This quote is an example of the author's purpose because it explains how the map of the Earth is made and how it is helpful to those using the map.

Important Info

"Their critical to the way we think. If maps didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent them" (Jennings 26).

How does this contribute to my understanding of AP Human Geo?

"One is our isolation--drive east from France for ten hours, and you might cross five different nations. Drive east from El Paso, Texas, and ten hours later you won't even be in Houston yet" (Jennings 42).

How does this contribute to my understanding of AP Human Geo?

"America's heroic map librarians saved the country's bacon yet again" (Jennings 60).

Without theses librarians holding important maps, the country could be in ruins or taken over by other countries.

"...during our trip to Thailand, next to the block-long sign at Bangkok's city hall that prints the city's full 163-letter name" (Jennings 69).

This is a type of toponymy, which means place names.

"Without modern Mapmaking tools, scale can be tricky" (Jennings 87).

This explains that Mapmaking is hard, and using the scale without modern tools would be even harder.

Diction

"But i knew these lacunae weren't just empty because they were rugged and remote; they were empty because nobody really wanted to live there" (Jennings 4).

This strengthened the novel because it gave a different way to say there were gaps, or missing peices of the series or argument.

"'Geography' is Greek for 'writing about the Earth.' We study the Earth" (Jennings 46).

This strengthened the novel because it described the meaning of geography which in the main focus in the novel.

"A few years ago, my wife and I hiked Mount Greylock in northwest Massachusetts to admire that fall foilage in the Berkshires from above" (Jennings 155).

This strengthened the novel because it described what they were admiring on their hike up the mountain.

"Hyposymetric maps are those ones that represent terrain with vivid colors: greens for low elevations, browns and purples for high ones" (Jennings 6).

This strengthened the novel because it described the meaning of hyposymetric by giving examples of how it is seen on a map.

Connections

Another Text

Personal

Historical

"You'd think that, in the more provincial 1600s, everyone would have been a little hazy on geography, but that didn't prevent the French educator Denis Martineau du Plessis from filling his preface of his 1700 book Nouvelle Geographie with Tribbiani-worthy stories of map woe" (Jennings 36).

"Maybe it makes some of us a little smug, to be so obviously superior to the unwashed masses who couldn't tell Equatorial Guinea from Papua New Guinea if their lives depended on it" (Jennings 55).

"When I was young, maps represented stability to me in a turbulent world" (Jennings 135).

To me, maps are not a stability to me, and i rarely use maps to get to places because I usually just go to places that I have been to before.

This is a connection to history because people were very fond of their knowledge of geography and were really good at navigating through the different towns.

This relates to the AP Human Geo text book, because it talks about the differences between places with the same name.

"Her uncanny inaccuracy does have one useful application, though: if I'm lost while driving, I can always ask her which way she thinks we should go at an intersection and then turn in the exact opposite direction" (Jennings 18).

"In maps, our eyes are free to wander, spatially, the way they do when we study new surroundings in life" (Jennings 115).

This just like children when they get into a toy store, their eyes just wander every where just trying to take it all in.

Mindy wasn't able to tell which way to go when they were walking around Washington D.C., but when I'm walking around a new place I am able to remember places that we have been passed.

MAPHEAD

By: Ken Jennings