New book: A History of Canada in Ten Maps: Epic Stories of Charting a Mysterious Land

Title: A History of Canada in Ten Maps: Epic Stories of Charting a Mysterious Land Author: Adam Shoalts Publisher: Allen Lane Pages: 384 Every map tells a story, and every map has a purpose: inviting us to go somewhere we’ve never been. It is an account of what we know, but also a trace of what we long for. Like a story, a map is never completely objective. It records special interests and agendas. It leaves important things unsaid even as it purports to lay things out clearly and indisputably. We can know our history by our maps. That is what A History of Canada in Ten Maps will do. This book chronicles not just the centuries of Canada’s existence; it conjures the world as it appeared to those who were called upon to map it. What would the new world look like to Jacques Cartier, who could see no farther than the treeline? What would the north have looked like to Martin Frobisher, confronting a sea of ice but imagining that Cathay lay just beyond? What would the vastness of the…