Mapping Friction

I recently noticed that Google Books has a cool new feature where (for some books) it will show you a map of places named in the book. I thought it would be good to test it out on a book about globalization, and so I tried Anna Tsing’s Friction, which we discussed last summer. Sure enough, they have a great map of places mentioned in the book:

On the Google Book page you can click on the red tabs and get a relevant excerpt from the book. I think this is a really nifty feature. One can always look up place names in a book’s index, but it is another thing to see them on a map. The service is still a little rough around the edges (most of the US locations mark publishers listed in the bibliography), but I think it has a lot of potential to turn into a truly useful tool for scholars.

P. Kerim Friedman is an assistant professor in the Department of Ethnic Relations and Cultures at National Dong Hwa University, in Taiwan, where he teaches linguistic and visual anthropology. He is co-director of the film Please Don't Beat Me, Sir!, winner of the 2011 Jean Rouch Award from the Society of Visual Anthropology. Follow Kerim on Twitter.