With the proliferation of big data and data visualization, future maps will inevitably be more than muted blocks of color arranged along shaky lines that are drawn and redrawn by governments. New Views is a diverse collection of modern maps that synthesize data into a compelling and more accurate representation of what it means to live in the 21st century. It's the kind of coffee-table book that goes beyond platitudes and pretty images and lets us explore our world in a novel way. I especially enjoyed the well-crafted essays that Bonnett pairs with each map. For me, they pushed this book from 4 to 5 stars.

What a fascinating book! All of the maps included here will open your eyes to facts you may not have been aware of before.

This book was made for me! I'm obsessed with maps like this, so to have an entire book full of them is like heaven. My first read through was just a quick skim of the maps, but I'm already going back to read deeper into the text. I absolutely love that there is a detailed explanation accompanying each map, along with some stats about which countries fared the best and worst. I'm adding this to my wishlist immediately and can't wait to have my own copy.

Are you a mapaholic? Do you just love to scrutinize maps? If so, I've got the book for you.

In 2018, Alastair Bonnett released New Views: The World Mapped Like Never Before: 50 maps of our physical, cultural and political world.

I adore maps and I soaked up all 50 maps.

It's not available as an ebook, which is fine since the colorful book is designed to be flipped through, touched, and examined.

VERDICT: 10/10 stars

A very very good, informative, thoughtful and timely book. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC.

"Give me an atlas over a guidebook any day."

The visual representation of data is an exciting and fascinating field, and we've come a long way from simple bar graphs and Venn diagrams. This book focuses on issues of global consequence, and does so by presenting fifty world maps, each drawn to illustrate a set of facts, observations, principles or data regarding a single topic.

Roughly organized among "Land, Air and Sea", "Human and Animal", and "Globalization", the topics range from distribution of ocean garbage to gasoline prices, to patterns of emigration, to religious diversity, to the world nut trade. The point of each map, of course, is to emphasize global connectedness as much as to provide information, and in this it succeeds remarkably well. There is much to consider here; it is a visual treat and a change of perspective for those of us who enjoy pouring over lists and collections of factoids.

Each map is accompanied by a narrative section that identifies the source of the data and that draws the reader's attention to highlights and connections of note. The maps vary, as one might expect, in what you might call "confidence" or "hardness". A map of, say, asteroid strikes or global distribution of fast food franchises is based on hard observational data. A map of "vulnerability to natural disasters" takes into account attitudes toward emergency preparedness and the robustness of infrastructure and emergency planning, and is much more subjective. So, some of these maps have to be viewed with some reserve.

That said, it never hurts to know as much as you can about home, and this is home writ large. There is much to see here, and much to suggest further inquiry and investigation. This was an intriguing and worthy find. (Check out "Pangea Ultima", a geoprediction of the future of continental drift, and another one - an eye opening map of undersea communications cables.)

(Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

This was a really fascinating book, showing various metrics overlayed on a map of Earth - everything from energy usage to gun ownership, from bird diversity to endangered languages. These images were accompanied with quick summaries explaining the maps and metrics and pointing out some visible trends. A really unique way to look at the various forces shaping and being shaped by human activity.

If you like maps, this is the book for you. Really interesting and new ways of looking at the world. Cool photos as well as interesting facts that I wouldn't have otherwise known. I actually purchased this book for my husband.Would totally recommend this book.

I know a fictional book is going to be good when it includes a map, so I was intrigued by a book that’s a collection of them, and I am glad I was. Covering a wide range of different topics, New Views gives a glimpse on a variety of different ideas that kept me reading.

What I like about this book is that it makes you think. Maps such as the ‘Rebounding Land’ maps certainly make you wonder who does own the land when land is being created or changed? And asks more questions about how we treat our planet and whether we should be doing more to protect it, particularly when these maps are combined with graphs such as the one showing the global temperature rising.

This book is mindblowing in moments and thoughtful in others, maps which show just how much of the ocean is left unexplored fascinate me and others such as the ‘Air Flight’ map certainly show the inequalities that exist still when it comes to economies around the world and access to air travel that’s slowly changing.

I learnt so much from this book and recommend it for anyone who really is into planet Earth, and I like to think we all are.