Maps
Maps have always been on the minds of policymakers. You may have heard about the United Nations’ adoption of a new world map, as proposed by the government of Togo. It replaces the previously-used map based on the Mercator projection that seriously over-emphasised the size of land in higher latitudes.
Only one country voted against adopting this new map.
This coincides with the visit to Australia by Nikolaus Schobesberger, Director of the Globe Museum of the Austrian National Library in Vienna. You can hear him on Late Night Live, talking with David Marr about world globes, empire, and the making of the world. And you can find a short video tour of the museum. Presumably Schobesberger has come to Australia to correct depictions of our latitudes as a world of massive serpents and other monsters. Or were those early cartographers prophesying about political developments in these as yet unknown lands?
