Arno Peters: Radical Map, Remarkable Man TRAILER

A fascinating 30-minute documentary exploring the history of how the Peters Equal Area World Map came into being. Filmed on-location at Dr. Peters home in Bremen, Germany, as well as in Oxford, England, and a variety of locations in the USA. The film includes scenes from the WEST WING TV show that featured the map and cartographic critiques that show the tension and conflict that the Peters map generated amongst the cartographic establishment.
For more info, see www.ODTmaps.com

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Arno
• Peters
• WEST
• WING
• maps
• Map
• Movie
• map
• stories
• revolutionary
• world-changing
• Ruth
• Abrams

[BAbramms]

The map wasn't radical. But it deconstructed the old Euro-centric world view just at the time colonialism of European powers in Africa (and elsewhere) was waning...so the map was "radical" as a consciousness-shift over existing world-views. And that was exactly how Arno Peters "positioned" it...with copy attached to the map (side and bottom panels) explaining how and why this "new" world view was important. Gotta give the guy credit for that!

[paulydublinboy]

I'm from Ireland and this makes us look even smaller than we are hahaha :) However I do believe that the Peters Map is a genuine reflection on the physical appearance of the world relative to land mass. As for Thunderwavia's comments below.... the debate on the map is only a political one because people like you (who dont know what they're talking about) make it one. I truly cant make sense of your prolix comments (look it up).

[EquusFerrarius]

@heckler171 No one lied to anyone, Accurate globes have been around for centuries. The original projection was a navigational chart, and worked very well for it's intended pupose. No 2D world map can be truely accurate. The orginal projection resulted in things getting larger the further you got from the equator. This was a relativley crude method, but was a good way to show navigational constant course lines as they are. Australia is the smallest continent, not Europe.

[EquusFerrarius]

Peters map wasn't radical, there were maps around long before his which try to show countries based on their actual size. Johann Heinrich Lambert made one in 1772, with James Gall producing another in the 1800's. Peters map isn't perfect, the world is a sphere and cannot be depicted accurately as a 2D rectangle. The best Map available is probably the Mollweide projection, created in Germany in 1805. But if you really want an accurate depiction, use a globe or google earth.

[heckler171]

wow they lied to us according to this map europe is the tiniest continent and not worthy of being called one. and africa can hold most of the eastern hemp. russia isnt as big as we were told. hmmmm

[Thunderwavia]

@paulydublinboy hahaha, you bigot, I did not waste my time on this bigot, just read the thread last week, hahha

lets debate, you Ignorant loser

[paulydublinboy]

@aledg I was kinda speaking rhetorically but cheers :)

[paulydublinboy]

@Thunderwavia WOW! It took you 2 years to come up with that response! And a rather pathetic (and IGNORANT) one at that.

[Thunderwavia]

@paulydublinboy actually from your response, you are rather IGNORANT, making a presumption about me, means you are prejudiced "people like you", dumb Irish bigot. Maybe you should look up the word, ignorant, and prejudiced, keep your ignorant Irish bigotry in Ireland, ha

[centerfoldFrancis]

@Djelomou amen brother, amen..

[centerfoldFrancis]

@Thunderwavia you are quite stupid. first of all, you can see ( i hope) that "leftie" and "ignorant" don't exactly go together now, do they? well done asshole. number 2, I'm not a "leftie" you dumb ignorant bastard - and if you knew anything about any political thesis, you would know calling someone a "leftie" isn't an insult, especially these days. Oh and, go look up the word Fascism on wiki and see if you can actually make a connection there with what you wrote. Bigot? - Can you read mate?