The Bookworm: 'Atlas of the Invisible'

Atlas of the Invisible: Maps and Graphics That Will Change How You See the World, by James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti. 216 pages. W.W. Norton and Company. 2021.

For centuries, atlases depicted what people could see: roads, rivers, mountains. Today, we need graphics to reveal the invisible patterns that shape our lives. Atlas of the Invisible is an ode to the unseen, to a world of information that cannot be conveyed through text or numbers alone. (p. 13)

Three down, two to go.

The next book in my reading queue was Atlas of the Invisible, a collection of beautiful and informative maps and graphics that, as the subtitle says, “will change how you see the world.” 

I love maps, especially road maps. Every couple of years, I buy or am gifted the latest edition of Rand McNally’s U.S. road atlas (I love the large-scale version with spiral binding). I currently have the 2024 edition and it is my favorite reading material while sitting on the throne. I also own the 2020 edition of Big Easy Read Britain. I would really like to own a European road atlas, especially for Germany, but have not found one to my liking. Needless to say, Atlas of the Invisible was a very thoughtful and fitting gift from The Librarian (way back in 2021).

The winner of the American Association of Geographers’s 2021 Globe Book Award for Public Understanding of Geography, Atlas is a treasure for map lovers like me. The included maps and graphics put numbers into perspective, bring stats alive, and make them visceral. Many are amazing and mind-blowing, worth poring over again and again.

What is the difference between a map and an atlas? Good question, one I asked myself because I was unsure. According to good ol’ Merriam-Webster, a map is “a representation usually on a flat surface of the whole or a part of an area” as well as “a diagram or other visual representation that shows the relative position of the parts of something.” An atlas is “a bound collection of maps often including illustrations, informative tables, or textual matter.” Atlas, obviously, fits the definition perfectly.

After a preface and introduction, in which the authors talk about finishing and producing the book while on lockdown (which is an amazing feat given how gorgeous and detailed the book is), Atlas is divided into four sections—“Where We’ve Been,” “Who We Are,” “How We’re Doing,” and “What We Face”—which all feature an introductory essay. Each map or graphic is accompanied by vital and well-written “textual matter” to provide context.

The maps and graphics in Atlas cover an array of topics, including COVID deaths in the UK, bombing targets in the Vietnam War, and ice flows in Alaska and Greenland. Though the data from each may not mean much in tables or as figures in text, their presentation as maps make them illuminating and often poignant. Many are fascinating. The spread titled “Octopus’s Garden” shows us the web of undersea cables that carry the internet across the world. The fastest cable, that stretches from Virginia Beach to near Bilbao, “could transfer all 280 million Beatles records ever purchased from the US to Spain in the time it took you to read this sentence” (p. 98). Maps about whaling and the slave trade are sickening. Pairing heartbreaking memories with places, “Eyewitness Cartography” is a fascinating but disturbing map of Jacob Brodman and Anna Patipa’s displacement and experiences in Nazi concentration camps.

Some maps did not do it for me or were not as easy to interpret, which is understandable (one can’t hit a home run every at-bat). Good graphics can make the point, but bad ones can miss it. It emphasizes the importance of good, clear, intuitive graphic design and messaging. But, for the most part, Cheshire and Uberti get the message across; their graphics and maps affect one both intellectually and emotionally.

Some of the maps are a call to action, especially those dealing with pollution and climate change. With maps like these, it is hard not to act.