40 - Totem Foods of North America

This map illustrates the ‘Totem Foods’ of North America, celebrating ”the many distinctive regional food traditions on the North American continent by featuring a totem food key to the identity of each region. These totem foods are more than just important commodities - community feasts, household rituals, song, stories and the nutritional well-being of residents have revolved around these foods for centuries.” Contributed by Andrew as a comment on post #17 on this blog and to be found here.

39 - Manhattan Neighbourhoods (2.0)

A variation on post #10 in this blog, done by Alexander Cheek and to be found on this page of his website. The differences between these two maps indicate that neighbourhoods in Manhattan are ‘fluid’, and constantly evolving.

38 - The World According to Ronald Reagan

This parody map shows the world as Ronald Reagan (US president 1980-1988) might have imagined it. Even as parody, it indicates an interesting duality: on the one hand, it presents a view of the world as it no longer is, the Cold War having ended; on the other hand, it illustrates a disparaging outlook on the rest of the world that some would argue persists in to this day in American culture and foreign policy.

The map shows an ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ bipolarity, with exaggerated sizes for (non-American) ‘good guys’ such as: