Free eBook ☆ ePub The Island of Lost Maps ç A True Story of Cartographic Crime Ú moneyexpresscard

> The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime

eBook The Island of Lost Maps

Free eBook ☆ ePub The Island of Lost Maps ç A True Story of Cartographic Crime Ú moneyexpresscard ✓ In 1995 a watchful patron alerted a librarian at Johns Hopkins University that another patron a middle aged and well dressed man was behaving suspiciously The In 1995 a watchful patron alerted a librarian at Johns Hopkins University that another patron a middle aged and well dressed man was behaving suspiciously The librarian called the police who discovered that the man a Floridian named Gilbert Bland had cut four maps from a set of rare books On investigation the police were able to attribute dozens of similar thefts to Bland thefts that had taken place at a score of the country's best regarded and presumably best pr Nothing ruins a good book than an author confusing his uest to find the story with the storyThis book is best when Harvey is relating actual events He includes several true stories about map thefts or about cartographers that I found interesting because 1 their effect on historical events is obvious and 2 the stories are generally unknown to the average reader There are some great stories in the first half of this bookBut there is far too much philosophizing in this book especially toward the end when there is really nothing left to tell about Gilbert Bland or the maps he stole Harvey admits there was nothing left to tell In light of this it would seem that the book should have come to an end But that is not what happens Instead the plot shifts to Harvey's journey to find to tell And so we are left to read about all the parallels he draws between himself and Gilbert Bland; his uest and that of another early explorer or cartographerand another; and then another; and then probably a few ; his uest and that of Gilbert Bland; the psychological profiles of past thieves and Gilbert Bland; the results of his mother's childhood trauma and that of Gilbert Bland really? do I need to keep going?It seems in the second half of the book that Harvey found meaning in everything He needed to tell us about his unplanned 100 miles out of the way trek to a town called Eldorado The map told him to go I don't get it either And even though the trek failed to garner any new information about the story he was researching it had some sort of romantic meaning to him so we get to read about it in the book SnooooooooreIn relating all of these events Harvey kept taking this circuitous route whereby he interrupted the current flow of the text to go off and describe the meaning he found from the fill in the blank I'm all for some of that But it was overdone and often fruitless because it rarely advanced the story I didn't even know what he was talking about by the end Birds had meaning Rockets had meaning Satellites had meaning I just couldn't stomach it any The book was suddenly about everything I just wanted it to endYou might think that the moral of this book would be don't steal maps But the real moral of the story is this a story that doesn't end the way you want won't become any interesting by inserting yourself as the main character

eBook ✓ A True Story of Cartographic Crime é Miles Harvey

Rary to library reconstructing the crimes of the man he deems the Al Capone of map theft following the contours of Bland's complex sinister character Along the way Harvey examines the history of cartography generally and the ravenous market for old maps once the uiet province of a few knowing collectors now invaded by speculators These maps are just another corner of the overpriced status symbol commodity market and one that richly rewarded Bland's nefarious work I can’t believe I finally finished reading this book I never thought I’d make it Even Jake said he felt relieved when I was finally done So I suppose it’s not hard to guess that I thought this book was pretty boring and way longer than it needed to be I would repeatedly find myself at the bottom of a paragraph and realize I had no clue what I had just read Or I would suddenly come to with a jolt and a major crick in my neck OyThe author took what was a mildly interesting case a man who stole hundreds of valuable old maps from rare book rooms at libraries around the nation and researched it to death He spent 4 years interviewing anyone even remotely connected to the case or rare maps collecting he gathered all kinds of court documents police records military records etc and he dumped all of that information into this book The info wasn’t well organized to begin with but then he intersperses it with all kinds of tidbits on the history of maps the history of map collecting the history of explorers and it was mostly a jumbled messIt starts to get weird when he author admits that he became obsessed with this case and the criminal involved Gilbert Bland He continually delved into Bland’s psyche trying to get to the bottom of his motivations in committing this type of crime He constantly wrestled with his obsession trying to figure out throughout the book why he was so obsessed with this case and doing such extensive research into it While I appreciated his candor and typically enjoy trying to get to the psychological heart of things it got awkward to sit there and read about his inner struggle At one point the author even talks about how he was beginning to take on traits of the map thief He even compares his search for Gilbert Bland to that of Stanely’s immortal search for Dr Livingstone and then goes on to remind us of what kind of a person Stanley turned into he ended up working as a Belgian mercenary and was involved in the oppression and torture of thousands of people in the CongoEven after all that I won’t say that this book was totally worthless As I mentioned the case itself was mildly interesting and as with any non fiction work there was information to be gleaned that I can take away with me Whether I like or dislike a book is not the most important thing to me I care whether a book provides food for thought and for interesting discussion If it provides me an outlet for expressing my strong opinions in a fairly safe and neutral forum I think this book has done those things for me and I look forward to the discussion at book club Thanks for hanging in there with me if you’ve made it this far If you feel so inclined leave a comment so I can give you due gratitude

Miles Harvey é A True Story of Cartographic Crime ePub

The Island of Lost Maps A True Story of Cartographic CrimeOtected scholarly institutionsLike countless other readers Miles Harvey a writer for 'Outside' magazine encountered the news of Bland's arrest as a brief item in the back pages of the morning newspaper The story stayed with Harvey who wondered why otherwise law abiding people behave so badly around antiuities In 'The Island of Lost Maps' a wonderfully rich excursion into the demimonde of what might be called cartographomania Harvey follows Bland's tracks from lib I bought the book for a few reasons I liked the cover I like Islands I like maps I like some true stories It seemed totally randomHighly recommended because even if you like none of the above reasons you will still love reading it Yay cartography