A good book doing a good service. Short portrays the white exploration of North America (primarily) not as a tale of rugged, individualistic white men braving the wilderness, but explorers gathering information from the native peoples in a series of "cartographic encounters." Short skims expedition reports and maps for evidence (sometimes reading between the lines) of native informants. Short ably demonstrates this. He also has another parallel thesis: that Indians gave whites information for their own benefit, but that doing so sowed the seeds of their own destruction. When whites had the knowledge, they no longer needed indigenous information. This schemata works well with North America, but would fall down if he applied it to Latin America, thus the focus. That and the book is quite short and is a tad bit repetitive in places. It makes up for these drawbacks in its brevity and its ability to make you think. Recommended for all historians/enthusiasts of exploration, cartography, and Indian-white relations. ( )