Books of The Times: ‘On the Map’ by Simon Garfield

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Mr. Garfield does not pretend to be a serious historian. (Neither did Ken Jennings, whose 2011 “Maphead” covered some of the same terrain.) His gift is for cherry-picking factoids, and his latest book, “On the Map,” is full of little conversation pieces. But this book is diminished by the way it has been produced, with an alluringly tinted antique map of Africa on its cover and nothing but smudgy gray illustrations inside.

Some of the map depictions are also reduced in scale, which makes their copious text virtually illegible. Too bad: the kinds of stories Mr. Garfield loves depend on evocative visual images that his book doesn’t provide.

Should readers be able to conjure maps out of thin air? The first cartographers had to do just that, relying on little information, much intuition and the tactical use of deductive tools like trigonometry. But maps vary so wildly in shape, spirit and subject matter that the desire to lay eyes on them is irresistible. True map aficionados are smitten by their language, too. “Gladly would I go from Grand-Bassam to Tabou along the coast of Côte d’Ivoire,” Mr. Garfield writes, “if only to say so out loud.”

Maps aren’t as revelatory here as fonts were in “Just My Type.” Still, this is a fine and fruitful moment for thinking about cartography. There are whole relatively new genres, from the M.R.I. to video-game landscapes to social media-based graphics that depict trending tweets and online conversations.

It could be argued that a ghostly, cobwebby apparition produced by Facebook, generated by Facebook users’ connections, is too different from a map produced by Eratosthenes of Cyrene for the Great Library of Alexandria to coexist in the same book. But Mr. Garfield prefers skipping and sampling. His chapters are mere snippets, and his book’s guiding principle is casual fun — to the extent that it even has one.

He does have a penchant for the peculiar. He will tell you not only how Eratosthenes worked but that his flat map of the world made the overall landmass look like an elongated skull. He will sketch the history of watery-bordered maps that imagined the inhabited world as a great island. And he will gladly point out mapmakers’ idiosyncrasies, like the presumptions in Strabo’s “Geographica,” which that Greek geographer began writing in 7 B.C., that Ireland was full of cannibals and Ceylon “produces elephants.” (This book is at its most excitable when maps contain whopping errors or illustrations of bizarrely fanciful nonhuman creatures.)

Subject matter doesn’t get much better for Mr. Garfield than the Mappa Mundi, from around 1290, which not only set off a scandal when Hereford Cathedral tried to sell it in 1988 (chapter title: “The Men Who Sold the World”) but also featured phantasmagorical drawings. The Mappa Mundi features a horned, four-legged creature called the Bonacon, “whose method of defense,” according to a British scholar in 1955 “was to discharge its ordure over three acres of ground and set fire to everything within reach.” To its credit, “On the Map” includes a close-up of an embarrassed-looking Bonacon doing exactly that.

Almost any map-related oddity you can imagine is in here somewhere. Mr. Garfield questions whether the famed Latin phrase “Hic Sunt Dracones” means “Here Be Dragons” or, less romantically, refers to Dagronian cannibals mentioned by Marco Polo. And how does one determine whether a pre-Columbian document is a forgery? Match its wormholes against a map known to be authentic.

“On the Map” occasionally shows a serious side. Blank spaces on maps, Mr. Garfield points out, offer stories of their own. An unnamed piece of Africa may have invited imperialist conquest. Parts of the unexplored American West already had old Native American names, but Native Americans were nowhere to be found. It took Lewis and Clark to put new ones on the map.

The future of maps may be Mr. Garfield’s most important concern. We live in a time when maps of fantasy realms, à la Tolkien’s Middle-earth, are more beloved than maps of real places. Inevitably, Mr. Garfield arrives at the high-tech juncture where GPS use overshadows the traditional map and maybe even supplants it; while he does his best to give credit to progress, he finds some of it deeply regrettable.

One long, humorous and affectionate chapter is devoted to an especially abrasive dealer in antique maps. Mr. Garfield finds this guy’s avaricious but old-school passion more meaningful than any cute tricks your smartphone can do.

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Today: economist Simon Johnson: investigation of JPMorgan Chase

Simon Johnson is Ronald a. Kurtz Professor of entrepreneurship at M.I.T. Sloan School of management and co-author of "White House Burning: founding fathers, our national debt, and why it matters to you."

JPMorgan Chase is too big to fail. The largest bank holding company in the United States with assets approaching $ 2.5 trillion reported in standard American accounting principles, it is inconceivable that JPMorgan Chase will be allowed to collapse now or in the future. Damage to the American economy and to the world would be too large.

Perspectives from expert contributors.

New trading losses of the company due to require greater public controls than will be the case for most private enterprises — and demand an independent investigation precisely what happened. (Dennis Kelleher of better markets has already called for exactly that.)

Investigation by the F.B.I. may not be enough public. Account of the strong political links between JPMorgan Chase and the administration of Obama, it is also better to have an investigation led by fully independent adviser.

I hope too-big-to-failure is not forever. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is working on a mechanism which would allow a return that agency to handle the "inconsistency" of the bank holding company, while the protection of creditors of the operational subsidiaries restricts the potential contagion effects.

But this mechanism is not yet in place. It does not apply to cross-border banking (remember that JPMorgan Chase losses are in London), and even F.D.I.C. Acting Chairman, Martin J. Gruenberg, is cautious, describing its likely effectiveness in a speech last week.

(Disclosure: I am the System Advisory Committee for resolution of the F.D.I.C., and I've worked with F.D.I.C. with certain terrain, activities intended to help the Agency receive constructive feedback for resolution. I am not paid by the F.D.I.C.)

In fact, JPMorgan Chase operate with tacit support of the Government of the United States-mainly in the form of actual and potential access to loans from the Federal Reserve, with the implication that the Treasury can provide assistance.

Effectively is backed by the full faith and credit of the Government assistance; It lowers the cost of funding the Bank, because it reduces the risk for creditors. JPMorgan Chase and other large banks in the u.s. economy are effectively Government (and subsidized) enterprises.

There is no kind of market, relating to the determination of the value for the franchise of Mega-banks; This is a government scheme of subsidies, purely and simply. People on the right side of the political spectrum, people on the left; See my blog post last week on the degree of direct partisan agreement on this matter.

I will add to this list – Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas Republican. When I receive your radio show on Monday afternoon, we were in full agreement on the need to break up or otherwise restrict the size of the large banks.

There are many sizes, questions about JPMorgan Chase losses, as well as the large volume of informed guesswork is exactly what happened. By his own account, Jamie Dimon, the Chief Executive, was unaware of what happens on the commercial Bureau, while Bloomberg News Reporters it brought to his attention.

At the time, he rejected any "TEMPEST in a teapot." during the weeks following this implies, hedge, or strategy to reduce risk, deplete the poor.

The question is, why not a salesperson make a mistake; This can happen anywhere. The question is how this is handled and by professionals of JPMorgan Chase risk management and their systems — considered by many domestic best in business.

Here are five questions that an independent inquiry must consider:

1. What is marketing? Who approved and reviewed trade?

2. to what extent are errors encouraged or approved by the specific quantitative models — for example, those who are well known as value-at-risk? (For criticism, see Pablo Triana book, "number that kills us.")

3. What Mr. Dimon know and when he know it? There is disclosure to the Board and shareholders at an appropriate time? This is one of the specific concerns of Mr. Kelleher.

4. the Council shall exercise sufficient depth of experience on relevant dimensions of risk management?

5. What interactions Mr Dimon or any of his colleagues to have with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York before and during these losses are made? Mr. Dimon is on Board of this institution, where his role was described as advisory. But what exactly he advise them in recent months and years, particularly in respect of risk levels of management and capital in systemically important banks?

On the one hand we hear from bankers that supervisors are watching them closely, and even affect their business. On the other hand clearly someone is not to pay attention. Why not?

This is not about the conduct of witch hunting. Is to establish the facts and understanding, if something about standard operating procedures and emergency protocols must be considered.

The right analogy is the investigations of the National Safety Council, a proposal which was made by Andrew Lo, my colleague at M.I.T., as well as its co-authors. We learn many things where companies actually becomes bankrupt; for example, Enron (see excellent book "the Smartest Guys in the room," Bethany Mclean and Peter Elkind) and Barry (see Bankruptcy Examiner's report).

But we must examine situations close to the incidents also.

This is awkward for White House-a look at one of white Ben of recent articles on the links between the wall and the administration of Obama. But by large banks, Wall Street makes this kind of investigation even more necessary-see the recording of Matt Taibbi for some graphic data.

Congress may also want to include, at least, to understand if the Dodd-Frank has been at all helpful. Volcker rule is still in force, but if it were, would this make a difference?

Mr Dimon does not support and has been consistent and vociferous opponent of the rule from the outset. It seems foolhardy to accept Mr Dimon view on this issue at par value. I stated in favour of the Volcker rule before the Senate Banking Committee at the beginning of 2010; Barry Zubrow, then the Chief Risk Officer of JPMorgan Chase, testified at and strongly against this.

Some people in the private sector and within the community of banking will impose, argues that this will further extend the scope of the Government vis-à-vis the legitimate private business. This misses the point — that is the people who run our largest banks, which reduce the viability of the private sector, and which threaten its future.

Fine Cam, President of the independent Community Bankers of America, showed strong leadership on this issue in the last week (you can track it in @ Cam_Fine on Twitter).

Eventually we may come to same conclusion as Elizabeth Warren, who has brilliantly seized political moment and put your opponent for the Senate seat from Massachusetts, Republican incumbent Scott Brown, protected.

Mrs Warren, seek the re-imposition of the glass-Steagall – separation of commercial from investment banking. Mr. fine has already been pushing in the same direction. This position must be attractive in political spectrum.

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