The Organization of Cartographers for Social Equality believe that the Mercator map projection "has fostered European Imperialist attitudes for centuries and created an ethnic bias against the third world". However they do admit that the Mercator projection is a useful tool for European sailors.
If you want a more balanced account of the Mercator projection then you you should read Tass's excellent introduction to the Flemish Cartographer Gerardus Mercator and his popular map projection. Mercator - It's a Flat, Flat World provides a wonderfully illustrated history of the Mercator projection and its creator, while also examining the benefits and problems of this popular cartographic representation of the world.
Tass's analysis of the Mercator projection includes an annotated guide to Gerardus Mercator's groundbreaking 1569 map, the 'New and More Complete Representation of The Terrestrial Globe Properly Adapted for Use in Navigation'. This guided tour introduces you to the map and provides a close-up examination of some of the map's features. The tour explains why the map is so useful as an aide to navigating at sea. It also explores the extent and limitations of geographical knowledge in the period when the map was made.
Alongside this detailed tour of Mercator's 1569 map 'Mercator - It's a Flat, Flat World' explores why it is so difficult to create an accurate flat two dimensional map of a three dimensional world. It explores the advantages and disadvantages of some of the other map popular projections and it illustrates how the different map projections each distort different areas of the world.
If you are interested in how different map projections distort the world then you should also like Projection Face. Projection Face is a great illustration of the distortions created by different map projections. The interactive shows how 64 different map projections effect our view of the world by showing each projection's effect when applied to something very familiar - the human face.
The distortions of each of the different projections can be illustrated further by clicking and dragging any of the mapped faces. This illustrates how the different map projections can be distorted themselves simply by changing the center of the map.
Projections Face is an interactive version of a 1924 illustration from Elements of Map Projection with Applications to Map and Chart Construction.
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