Since the early 1960s, the internationally acclaimed and highly distinguished Swedish geographer Gunnar Olsson has made substantial contributions to his own discipline. In addition, because of the transgressive nature of his work and writing, which often borders to art and philosophy, his ideas and approaches have reached a wider audience of those interested in the history and geography of ideas, culture and human reasoning. Olsson s recent masterpiece, Abysmal, is a minimalist guide to the territory of Western culture. In it, he investigates how cartographical reason enables people to think...