Maps with an Attitude

Tomorrow a new exhibition opens at the Harvard Map Collection: Maps with an Attitude: Cartographies of Propaganda and Persuasion, explores ways maps have been used to express points of view by examining more than a dozen maps which framed major conflicts of the 20th century, from World War I to the Bosnian War.

Items on display include a pre-World War I map depicting the nations of Europe as individuals; a World War II map, produced just after the start of the blitz in England, portraying the number and site of every English bombing raid in Germany; a 1955 map produced by Time magazine portraying communist China and the U.S.S.R. as a red-hued landmass looming over Japan, South Korea and U.S.-controlled Formosa; and a map portraying Sarajevo from 1992 to 1995, ringed by Serb tanks and rocket launchers.

Maps with an Attitude: Cartographies of Propaganda and Persuasion will be on display in the Harvard Map Collection in Pusey Library through August 14, 2010. Click here for the Map Collections' hours, and click here for directions to the Map Collection.

At your service,
Cheryl