Women are the exclusive focus of the 38th volume of Geographers. For the first time in the serial's history, the entire volume is devoted to important work of distinguished female geographers, amply demonstrating how these scholars' professional lives enrich the discipline's history. It also illustrates how reading and writing their biographies not only expands our understanding of geography's past, but points to its more diverse future. The collection includes biographies of Doreen Massey, winner of geography's 'Nobel prize', the prix Vautrin-Lud, for her remarkable contribution to geography and neighbouring disciplines which discovered the importance of space through her work; Helen Wallis, geographer and historian of cartography who for many years had charge of the UK's foremost collection of maps; Alice Saunier-Seïté, who applied her geographical training and formidable energy to teaching and educational reform in France; Isabel Margarida André, who lived through a turbulent political period in her native Portugal and meticulously investigated its effect on women and political geography; and the many women who helped to create the UK's first Geography department - the University of Oxford's, School of Geography - including Fanny Herbertson, Nora MacMunn, Marjorie Sweeting, Mary Marshall, Barbara Kennedy and other women geographers who are memorialised in a group article.

Map Worlds plots a journey of discovery through the world of women map-makers from the golden age of cartography in the sixteenth-century Low Countries to tactile maps in contemporary Brazil. Author Will C. van den Hoonaard examines the history of women in the profession, sets out the situation of women in technical fields and cartography-related organizations, and outlines the challenges they face in their careers. Map Worlds explores women as colourists in early times, describes the major houses of cartographic production, and delves into the economic function of intermarriages among cartographic houses and families. It relates how in later centuries, working from the margins, women produced maps to record painful tribal memories or sought to remedy social injustices. Much later, one woman so changed the way we think about continents that the shift has been likened to the Copernican revolution. Other women created order and wonder about the lunar landscape, and still others turned the art and science of making maps inside out, exposing the hidden, unconscious, and subliminal “text” of maps. Shared by all these map-makers are themes of social justice and making maps work for the betterment of humanity.

This book charts the developments in the discipline of geography from the 1950s to the 1980s, examining how geography now connects with urban, regional and national planning, and impacts on areas such as medicine, transport, agricultural development and electoral reform. The book also discusses how technical and theoretical advancements have generated a renewed sense of philosophic reflection – a concern closely linked with the critical examination and development of social theory.

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) is the leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users. It is the global voice of the information profession. The series IFLA Publications deals with many of the means through which libraries, information centres, and information professionals worldwide can formulate their goals, exert their influence as a group, protect their interests, and find solutions to global problems.

Colours make the map: they affect the map’s materiality, content, and handling. With a wide range of approaches, 14 case studies from various disciplines deal with the colouring of maps from different geographical regions and periods. Connected by their focus on the (hand)colouring of the examined maps, the authors demonstrate the potential of the study of colour to enhance our understanding of the material nature and production of maps and the historical, social, geographical and political context in which they were made. Contributors are: Diana Lange, Benjamin van der Linde, Jörn Seemann, Tomasz Panecki, Chet Van Duzer, Marian Coman, Anne Christine Lien, Juliette Dumasy-Rabineau, Nadja Danilenko, Sang-hoon Jang, Anna Boroffka, Stephanie Zehnle, Haida Liang, Sotiria Kogou, Luke Butler, Elke Papelitzky, Richard Pegg, Lucia Pereira Pardo, Neil Johnston, Rose Mitchell, and Annaleigh Margey.

The cover image, World Map by Fra Mauro c. 1450, is one of the most important and famous maps of all time. This monumental map of the world was created by the monk Fra Mauro in his monastery on the island of San Michele in the Venetian lagoon. Now the centrepiece of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in St Marc’s Square in Venice, the map in its nearly 600-year history has never left Venice – until now. Renowned for its sheer size - over 2.3 metres square - and stunning colours, the map was made at a time of transition between the medieval world view and new knowledge uncovered by the great voyages of discovery. Brilliantly painted and illuminated on sheets of oxhide, the sphere of the Earth is surrounded by the sphere of the Ocean in the ancient way. Yet Fra Mauro included the latest information on exploration by Portuguese and Arab navigators. Commissioned by King Afonso V of Portugal, it is the last of the great medieval world maps to inspire navigators in the Age of Discovery to explore beyond the Indian Ocean.