Cornell’s digital collection of persuasive maps has a lot to sift through, and a great deal of the material is guaranteed to raise eyebrows. (To the curators’ credit, they haven’t shied away from including malevolent propaganda from days of yore.) I’m partial to a bunch of the more lighthearted maps, such as this Greyhound promotional poster from 1935, but today I’m in the mood to highlight William Bunge’s disturbing work. Most of Bunge’s maps are geared toward illuminating the horrible toll of atomic warfare; aside from the image at the top of this post, this illustration of how a poison cloud could envelope Europe tends to stick in the mind.
Bunge sounds like he followed his own path in life, as evidenced by this snippet from his bio:
Bunge was denied tenure by Wayne State as a result of obscenity charges. In 1968 the House Un-American Activities Committee blacklisted him, along with other “radicals,” from speaking on American campuses. (His name was listed between H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael.) At that point, he moved to Canada and became a “nomad cartographer,” seeking visiting lectureships, working with underground publishers – and driving a cab in Toronto.
Related: A quick explanation for the title of this post.
capturedsheaow // Nov 18, 2021 at 4:19 pm
I like the “Region of Rat-Bitten Babies” map title