People rely on reason to think about and navigate the abstract world of human relations in much the same way they rely on maps to study and traverse the physical world. Starting from that simple observation, renowned geographer Gunnar Olsson offers in Abysmal an astonishingly erudite critique of the way human thought and action have become deeply immersed in the rhetoric of cartography and how this cartographic reasoning allows the powerful to map out other people's lives. A spectacular reading of Western philosophy, ...
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People rely on reason to think about and navigate the abstract world of human relations in much the same way they rely on maps to study and traverse the physical world. Starting from that simple observation, renowned geographer Gunnar Olsson offers in Abysmal an astonishingly erudite critique of the way human thought and action have become deeply immersed in the rhetoric of cartography and how this cartographic reasoning allows the powerful to map out other people's lives. A spectacular reading of Western philosophy, religion, and mythology that draws on early maps and atlases, Plato, Kant, and Wittgenstein, Thomas Pynchon, Gilgamesh , and Marcel Duchamp, Abysmal is itself a minimalist guide to the terrain of Western culture. Olsson roams widely but always returns to the problems inherent in reason, to question the outdated assumptions and fixed ideas that thinking cartographically entails. A work of ambition, scope, and sharp wit, Abysmal will appeal to an eclectic audience--to geographers and cartographers, but also to anyone interested in the history of ideas, culture, and art.
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Add this copy of Abysmal: a Critique of Cartographic Reason to cart. $27.79, good condition, Sold by Books From California rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Simi Valley, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2007 by University of Chicago Press.
Add this copy of Abysmal: a Critique of Cartographic Reason to cart. $47.00, very good condition, Sold by Affordable Collectibles rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Columbia, MO, UNITED STATES, published 2007 by University of Chicago Press.
Add this copy of Abysmal: a Critique of Cartographic Reason to cart. $76.79, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2007 by University of Chicago Press.
