Books

Books : reviews

Martin Dodge, Rob Kitchen.
Atlas of Cyberspace.
Addison Wesley. 2001

What does cyberspace look like?

For thousands of years, people have created maps of the world around them – cave paintings, drawings in the sand, pencil sketches, lavish manuscripts, 3-D models and, more recently, satellite images and computer-generated simulations. Now, a new generation of cartographers is focussing on a different realm: cyberspace

Here for the first time is an examination and selection of their maps, gathered together into one comprehensive source: the Atlas of Cyberspace. Written in an accessible style and illustrated with over 300 full color images, the Atlas of Cyberspace catalogs thirty years’ worth of maps to reveal the rich and varied landscapes of cyberspace – a world occupied by half a billion users.

The Atlas explores the new cartographic and visualization techniques being employed in the mapping of cyberspace, concentrating on the following main areas:

• Internet infrastructure and traffic flows • The World Wide Web • Online conversation and community • imagining cyberspace in art, literature and film.

Based on extensive research and written by two of the world’s leading cybergeography experts, the Atlas of Cyberspace provides an unprecedented insight into the shape of the Internet and World Wide Web. For anyone with an interest in the structure, content and social dimension of the online world, this is a fascinating and invaluable resource.