The Map Room at the British Library

Over the last couple of months I have been visiting various archives to access some great material relevant to the “Critical History.” In June I visited the Library of Congress (LoC) for a short trip, where I met with John Hessler and checked through the John Snyder papers. Snyder was an authority on map projections and his correspondence with Arthur Robinson on this topic is fascinating.

I was especially interested in the exchanges about the Peters projection, which will form one entry in the Critical History. Robinson was famously opposed to the work of Peters and said so (often) in print, more or less politely. (In letters he was a bit more forthright, calling it a “ridiculous display,” “dismissed him as a crackpot” etc).

Snyder was also skeptical of it, although in my opinion he had a more open mind about its…