Monmonier, Mark, Maps with the News: The Development of American Journalistic Cartography. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989. ISBN-0-226-53411-1. 6 x 9 inches, xii, 331pp., illustrated, cloth. (11030 South Langley Ave., Chicago, IL 60628, $24.95)

This book explores the relationship between cartography and journalism.  Although much of this book deals with events after 1900, a few items pertain to earlier times.  The famous Gerrymander map from the Boston Gazette of 1812 is illustrated.  I have always wondered if copies of it have ever come on the market, and what they would sell for today.  After the introduction there are chapters devoted to Engraving technology and the rise of journalistic cartography; Wire services, news syndicates, and graphics gatekeepers; Map use in print journalism; and Maps in the electronic media.  Readers of this review will most likely be interested in the engraving technology chapter.  The various 19th-century techniques of wood engraving, stereotyping, electrotyping, and photoengraving are discussed in relation to producing maps.  Map collectors will be familiar with some of the names mentioned in this chapter: Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, Harper's Weekly, and The Illustrated London News.  Collectors of 19th-century Americana, and other with broader interests in cartographic history, should find this book appealing.

David C. Jolly, 1992