• 2004
• Cartographic
• Exhibit map
• Project link

The conjunction of old and new technologies is at the heart of the book Cartographica Extraordinaire: The Historical Map Transformed by David Rumsey and Edith M. Punt, the cover of which is shown here. Maps featured in the book tell a hundred distinct, exciting, important, and sometimes controversial stories. The stories follow along two main paths of inquiry: How did a continental wilderness become a civilization; and how has the development of cartographic science changed the ways we perceive, describe, study, and use that land? Cartographica Extraordinaire offers stunning reproductions from the renowned David Rumsey Map Collection—one of the largest and most complete of its kind. Focused for the most part on North and South America in the 18th and 19th centuries, the collection comprises more than 150,000 items: maps, atlases, and contextual supporting documents. Unlike similar collections, the delicacy and rarity of which necessitate careful storage and restricted-use policies, maps in the collection are available in growing numbers on the Web at http://davidrumsey.com.