Geographers: Biobibliographical Studies, Volume 36 focuses on 20th-century Britain and 19th- and 20th-century France. Six essays on individual geographers are complemented by a group article which describes the building of a French school of geography. From Britain, the life of Sir Peter Hall, one of the most distinguished geographers of recent times and a man widely known outside the discipline, is set alongside memoirs of Bill Mead, who made the rich geography of the Nordic countries come alive to geographers and others in the Anglophone world; Michael John Wise and Stanley Henry Beaver, who made their mark through building up the institutions where academic geography was practised and through teaching; and Anita McConnell, whose geographical training shaped her museum curation and studies of the history of science. From France, the individual biography of Andre Meynier is juxtaposed with group article on the first five professors of geography at Clermont-Ferrand. These intellectual biographies collectively show geography and geographers profoundly affected by wider historical events: the effect of war, particularly the Second World War, and the shaping of post-war society. They show the value of geographical scholarship in elucidating local circumstances and in planning national conditions, and as a basis for local, national, and international friendship.

The untold history of the multiracial making of the border between Canada and the United States. Often described as the longest undefended border in the world, the Canada-United States border was born in blood, conflict, and uncertainty. At the end of the American Revolution, Britain and the United States imagined a future for each of their nations that stretched across a continent. They signed treaties with one another dividing lands neither country could map, much less control. A century and a half later, they had largely fulfilled those earlier ambitions. Both countries had built nations that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific and had created an expansive international border that restricted movement. The vision that seemed so clear in the minds of diplomats and politicians was never so well-defined on the ground. As A Line of Blood and Dirt argues, both countries built their border across Indigenous lands using hunger, violence, and coercion to displace existing communities and to disrupt their ideas of territory and belonging. Drawing on oral histories, map visualizations, and archival sources, Benjamin Hoy reveals the role Indigenous people played in the development of the international boundary, as well as the impact the border had on Indigenous people, European settlers, Chinese migrants, and African Americans. Unable to prevent movement at the border's physical location for over a century, Canada and the United States instead found ways to project fear across international lines. Bringing together the histories of tribes, immigration, economics, and the relationship of neighboring nations, A Line of Blood and Dirt offers a new history of Indigenous peoples and the borderland.

The Forth Rail Bridge is one of the world's great engineering feats, and one of its most well-known. When it opened in 1890, the cantilevered bridge had one of the world's longest spans, at 541 metres. Its distinctive and innovative design marks it as an important milestone in bridge construction during the period when railways came to dominate long-distance land travel. Spanning the estuary of one of the country's great rivers, the Forth Bridge revolutionised travel within Scotland, and it continues to carry and freight more than 130 years after its official opening. This view of the Forth Rail Bridge features the Gresley A4 Class Pacific Plover locomotive and was painted by Terence Cuneo (1907-1996) for British Railways in 1952. Cuneo withstood gales of over 50 mph as he sketched the scene from a girder above the track.

The sudden appearance of portolan charts, realistic nautical charts of the Mediterranean and Black Sea, at the end of the thirteenth century is one of the most significant occurrences in the history of cartography. Using geodetic and statistical analysis techniques these charts are shown to be mosaics of partial charts that are considerably more accurate than has been assumed. Their accuracy exceeds medieval mapping capabilities. These sub-charts show a remarkably good agreement with the Mercator map projection. It is demonstrated that this map projection can only have been an intentional feature of the charts' construction. Through geodetic analysis the author eliminates the possibility that the charts are original products of a medieval Mediterranean nautical culture, which until now they have been widely believed to be.

WITH A FOREWORD BY TIM HARFORD Which nations have North Korean embassies? Which region has the highest number of death metal bands per capita? How many countries have bigger economies than California? Who drives on the 'wrong' side of the road? And where can you find lions in the wild? Revelatory, thought-provoking and fun, Brilliant Maps is a unique atlas of culture, history, politics and miscellanea, compiled by the editor of the iconic Brilliant Maps website. As visually arresting as Information is Beautiful and as full of surprising facts and figures as any encyclopaedia, Brilliant Maps is a stunning piece of cartography that maps our curious and varied planet. For graphic design enthusiasts, compulsive Wikipedia readers and those looking for the sort of gift they buy for someone else and wind up keeping for themselves, this book will change the way you see the world and your place in it.