The Map as Intent: Variations on the Theme of John Snow

"Critical geographers" concerned with cartography insist maps are first and foremost social artefacts that must be "read" as authorial documents rather than perceived as data statements. Their argument is typically dismissed as trivial because the relation between intent and output has rarely been demonstrated in a critical way. This article seeks to demonstrate the degree to which authorial intent defines map content and appearance through an analysis of a single set of maps. All are based on the original data collected in 1854 by Dr John Snow as part of his study of the cholera outbreak in London's Soho district. Snow's original map is included as baseline for a study that includes versions of the Snow map by a range of authors, including Cliff and Haggett; the US Centers for Disease Control; Gilbert; Tufte; and Monmonier. The resulting appropriations bear progressively less resemblance to the original work, despite the use of the same data set and its clear availability. The result is a cautionary tale...

[1]  D. Wood.  THE FINE LINE BETWEEN MAPPING AND MAP MAKING , 1993 .

[2]  K. McLeod,et al.  Our sense of Snow: the myth of John Snow in medical geography. , 2000, Social science & medicine.

[3]  Edward Tufte,et al.  Visual Explanations , 1997 .

[4]  J. B. Harley,et al.  DECONSTRUCTING THE MAP , 1989 .

[5]  Michael Russell Rip,et al.  Map-making and myth-making in Broad Street: the London cholera epidemic, 1854 , 2000, The Lancet.

[6]  A. Robinson.  Early Thematic Mapping in the History of Cartography , 1982 .

[7]  N. Thrift.  Environment and Planning D: Society and Space , 1995 .

[8]  J. B. Harley,et al.  The New Nature of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography , 2001 .

[9]  Mark Monmonier,et al.  The New Nature of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography , 2001 .

[10]  D. Wood,et al.  The power of maps , 1992 .

[11]  Edward J. Wood,et al.  An Introduction to Medicinal Chemistry (Third Edition) , 2005 .

[12]  E. Pattishall.  Basic assumptions for the teaching of behavioural science in medical schools. , 1973, Social science & medicine.

[13]  W. Sedgwick.  Principles of Sanitary Science and the Public Health , 2009, Nature.

[14]  P. Haggett,et al.  Atlas of Disease Distributions: Analytic Approaches to Epidemiological Data , 1989 .

[15]  David Rosser Phillips,et al.  Atlas of disease distributions: Analytic approaches to epidemiological data , 1991 .

[16]  Robert B Mc Master,et al.  Numerical Cartographic Generalization: An Introduction , 1989 .

[17]  P. Vinten-Johansen,et al.  Cholera, Chloroform, and the Science of Medicine: A Life of John Snow , 2003 .

[18]  N. Schuurman.  Critical GIS : theorizing an emerging science , 2000 .

[19]  Edward Rolf Tufte,et al.  The visual display of quantitative information , 1985 .

[20]  Stephen Turner,et al.  Social Constructionism and Social Theory , 1991 .

[21]  O. Kratochvil.  [Medical geography]. , 1976, Zdravotnicka pracovnice.

[22]  D. Wood,et al.  The map as a kind of talk: Brian Harley and the confabulation of the inner and outer voice , 2002 .

[23]  M. Monmonier.  How to Lie with Maps , 1991 .

[24]  Linda W. Pickle,et al.  Atlas of United States Mortality , 1996 .

[25]  L. Lang.  GIS for health organizations , 2000 .

[26]  Karen M. Trifonoff.  How to Lie With Maps, 2nd ed. , 1996 .

[27]  E. Gilbert,et al.  Pioneer Maps of Health and Disease in England , 1958 .

[28]  J. Watts.  Japan's new guidelines to expose doctors' errors , 2000, The Lancet.

[29]  David O'Sullivan,et al.  Geographic Information Analysis , 2002 .