Landscape has always played a vital role in shaping Japan’s cultural identity. Imaginative Mapping analyzes how intellectuals of the Tokugawa and Meiji eras used specific features and aspects of the landscape to represent their idea of Japan and produce a narrative of Japan as a cultural community. These scholars saw landscapes as repositories of local history and identity, stressing Japan’s differences from the models of China and the West. By detailing the continuities and ruptures between a sense of shared cultural community that emerged in the seventeenth century and the modern nation state of the late nineteenth century, this study sheds new light on the significance of early modernity, one defined not by temporal order but rather by spatial diffusion of the concept of Japan. More precisely, Nobuko Toyosawa argues that the circulation of guidebooks and other spatial narratives not only promoted further movement but also contributed to the formation of subjectivity by allowing readers to imagine the broader conceptual space of Japan. The recurring claims to the landscape are evidence that it was the medium for the construction of Japan as a unified cultural body.

Explore the world of cartography with this collection of creative map-related projects—for artists of all ages and experience levels. This fun and creative book features fifty-two map-related activities set into weekly exercises, beginning with legends and lines, moving through types and styles, and then creating personalized maps that allow you to journey to new worlds. Authors Jill K. Berry and Linden McNeilly guide you through useful concepts while exploring colorful, eye-catching graphics. Maps are beautiful and fascinating, they teach you things, and they show you where you are, places you long to go, and places you dare to imagine. The labs can be used as singular projects or to build up to a year of hands-on creative experiences. Map Art Lab is the perfect book for map lovers and DIY-inspired designers. Artists of all ages and experience levels can use this book to explore enjoyable and engaging exercises. “Learn about cartography, topography, legends, compasses, and more in this adventurous DIY map book.” —Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine “Every art teacher should have a copy of this book.” —Katharine Harmon, author of The Map as Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography

Mappings explores what mapping has meant in the past and how its meanings have altered. How have maps and mapping served to order and represent physical, social and imaginative worlds? How has the practice of mapping shaped modern seeing and knowing? In what ways do contemporary changes in our experience of the world alter the meanings and practice of mapping, and vice versa? In their diverse expressions, maps and the representational processes of mapping have constructed the spaces of modernity since the early Renaissance. The map's spatial fixity, its capacity to frame, control and communicate knowledge through combining image and text, and cartography's increasing claims to scientific authority, make mapping at once an instrument and a metaphor for rational understanding of the world. Among the topics the authors investigate are projective and imaginative mappings; mappings of terraqueous spaces; mapping and localism at the 'chorographic' scale; and mapping as personal exploration. With essays by Jerry Brotton, Paul Carter, Michael Charlesworth, James Corner, Wystan Curnow, Christian Jacob, Luciana de Lima Martins, David Matless, Armand Mattelart, Lucia Nuti and Alessandro Scafi

While literally hundreds of books exist on the subject of "cartographic" maps, The Art of Illustrated Maps is the first book EVER to fully explore the world of conceptual, "imaginative" mapping. Author John Roman refers to illustrated maps as "the creative nonfiction of cartography," and his book reveals how and why the human mind instinctively recognizes and accepts the artistic license evoked by this unique art form. Drawing from numerous references, The Art of Illustrated Maps traces the 2000-year history of a specialized branch of illustration that historians claim to be "the oldest variety of primitive art." This book features the dynamic works of many professional map artists from around the world and documents the creative process as well as the inspirations behind contemporary, 21st-century illustrated maps.

In each spread of this bold and humorous picture book, available for the first time since 1995, children can examine their place in the world around them through detailed and engaging maps. Twelve beautifully illustrated maps such as Map of My Day and Map of My Tummy will fascinate children. When finished reading the book, children can unfold the jacket -- it turns into a poster-size map!

"The Writer's Map is an atlas of the journeys that our most creative storytellers have made throughout their lives. This collection encompasses not only the maps that appear in their books but also the many maps that have inspired them, the sketches that they used while writing, and others that simply sparked their curiosity. " -- Publisher's description

"Through analysis of a growing sense of place and affective relationship between the land and its people, this book examines how the landscape shaped a crucial aspect of Japanese identity from the seventeenth century to the end of the nineteenth century"--Provided by publisher.