Men and Maps
NE Feminine Viewpoint talk I caught last week both interested and mildly irritated me-D. W. McKenzie on *""Maps in the Middle Ages" in his series The Wonderful World of Maps. This instructive and attention-catching series, given by a lively enthusiast, will, I am sure, transform the nature of maps for anyone who has regarded them as dull necessities or confusing mysteries. I felt, however, that the reasons Mr McKenzie gave for the imperfections of medieval maps rested upon over-simpli-fied ideas of medieval thought. I had thought that the practice of censuring medieval men because they had not accumulated the knowledge leading to modern technology, or suggesting that, had they not been so concerned with religion, they. might have been as wise, well adjusted and judicious as we are, had faded with more knowledge of the Middle Ages. Mr McKenzie did not go as far as this, but he came close to it. For instance, is it really a sign of ingenuousness to fill the blank spaces on maps with weird creatures and onelegged men? Current | science fiction peoples the planets with bug-eyed monsters as fanciful as any imagined by medieval men, and intended, perhaps,
no more seriously.
J. C.
R.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 951, 1 November 1957, Page 23
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203Men and Maps New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 951, 1 November 1957, Page 23
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