Welcome to A Cartographer's Tale

This is the start of a journey to navigate the maps, the history, and the world we live in.

I am a curious person and, for as long as I can remember, I have been passionate about maps. When I was a child, I spent hours reading the illustrated encyclopaedias at home, and I often went to the library to look for things that caught my attention. Perhaps everything can be better understood if I tell you that, when I was nine years old, my family star gift to me was an updated atlas, with all the changes of borders in Europe¹.

The Cartographer in His Study, by Ludwig Gloss (source)

That curiosity has navigated through a multitude of fields over the years. I studied Telecommunications Engineering, which is what I do for a living. Years later, steadily, I also started a degree in Geography and History. Science, linguistics, anthropology and mythology have always fascinated me and that is what led me to create the blog Recuerdos de Pandora², with which I entered the field of writing. Since 2010 I published 350 entries which, over the years, accumulated 15 million visits. That's when I ran into the impostor syndrome and, little by little, I gave it up.

But not completely.

With the rise of social media, I started sharing and commenting about multiple maps. At first, it was only on Twitter, until August 2012, when I was persuaded to store them somewhere more stable. I didn't feel like creating a new blog, as I saw them declining at the time. Instead, I decided to create a Facebook page³.

Years went by, and I posted many maps, thousands of them. At the time, that way of sharing content seemed the most appropriate. Then, social networks started to become an unhealthy space. The rules of the game were changing all the time, and many people were abandoning some and taking up others. As a consequence, I saw great creators losing part of their work of many years. That's how, at Christmas 2022/2023 I started a new project: to set up a map catalogue. This time, it would be on a hosting of my choice. Thus, two years ago, Mapas Milhaud website was born⁴.

The cherry on top of this project was the newsletter in Spanish, which arrived two months later, in March 2023. Almost two years have passed in which I have published 95 articles, and more than 2,700 people have decided to join me in the adventure. During that time, I have also managed to write a book on propaganda (in Spanish), which was published last April. All of this, together, has helped me to regain the desire to write and continue telling stories.

Now, the time has come to go one step further and start writing in English as well. For the last 18 years, my entire professional career has been in English. Thanks to this, I have managed to travel, substantially improve my command of the language and meet many people with whom I only communicate in English.

There are many friends who, interested in what I already write in Spanish (and they cannot understand), have encouraged me to publish in English. This whole story is what explains the reason behind this new newsletter: A Cartographer's Tale.

What will you find in this newsletter?

I have a fondness for maps. I can't hide that because you will see it consistently in article after article. But for me, maps are much more than a piece of paper representing territory. They are a great excuse to elaborate on the history of different peoples; they help us understand the geology and geography of the Earth; they allow us to understand how some actors seek to implant their narrative; or simply they help us to represent data on any ongoing event. I see maps as the best possible tool to explain the world we live in, from almost any field.

In this newsletter, I will adapt some of the work I publish (and have published) in Milhaud Maps into English. I like to talk about adapting, as it takes more than a mere translation to let a text make sense and take shape in another language⁵. There will also be articles that I will first publish in English and later adapt to Spanish.

I will start publishing a couple of articles every week, Thursdays and Sundays. Later on, it will remain only as a weekly newsletter, which you will receive on Thursdays.

Currently, I am also working on finding the best way to translate the map catalogue into English, although currently it looks like it may take me several months. Now that the work is done, I'd like all of you around here to be able to enjoy everything in there too⁶.

So, welcome to all of you. And of course, I'd appreciate it if you'd subscribe and spread the word. I have a lot to tell and I’m really looking forward to do it. Believe me when I tell you that it will be very worthwhile.

1. This also gives an idea of how old I am.

2. I’m not including a link, as I already closed it in 2023.

3. Which is still alive with 34,000 followers

4. Milhaud is the nickname I have always used on the Internet, and Mapas are maps in Spanish. I have to admit, I was not really creative with the name.

5. In a way, also in another cultural context

6. Until I do, there's always Google Translate!