Cartography
Maps are the manifestation of an intellectual construct of physical and metaphysical environments. They are rich cultural objects presenting and transmitting information about time and place of production. A map is not neutral - it is an interactive, constructed representation of space as perceived and presented by its maker and then interpreted by the viewer. Maps thus reveal methodological relationships between artistic and scientific approaches, aesthetics and functionality and form and content in the context of visual culture. And given their subjective nature, maps reproduce the views or perspectives of their makers.
Cartographic Traditions in East Asian Maps is focused on a group of maps from the MacLean Collection, one of the world's largest private collections of maps. The maps presented here are in a wide range of medium and formats including screens, wall maps, sheet maps, pocket maps, case maps and map plates. They are eighteenth and nineteenth-century maps from the late Qing dynasty in China, the Joseon dynasty in Korea and the Edo and Meiji periods in Japan illustrating late traditions in the region's history. Each of the three chapters examines one of the three principal regions of East Asia and begins with overall regional maps, then local city maps of Beijing, Edo, Yokohama and Kyoto, respectively, or the eight provinces of Korea. This book provides some of the particular practices and relationships between text and image in East Asian map making that are unique in world cartography. Often particular map making characteristics are not recognized as unique within their own cultural contexts, and so it is only through the process of comparing and contrasting that these qualities emerge. This survey of selected maps proves extremely useful in revealing certain similarities and distinctive differences in the representations of space, both real and imagined, in early modern cartographic traditions of China, Korea and Japan. In addition, as this was a period that Western nations were applying pressure on Asia to open for trade, religion and diplomacy, the introduction of Western cartographic methodologies during the early modern period of East Asia, along with some of the resulting changes, is also discussed.
The period between the French Revolution and World War II was a time of tremendous growth in both mapmaking and map reading throughout Europe. There is no better place to witness this rise of popular cartography than in Alsace-Lorraine, a disputed borderland that the French and Germans both claimed as their national territory. Desired for its prime geographical position and abundant natural resources, Alsace-Lorraine endured devastating wars from 1870 to 1945 that altered its borders four times, transforming its physical landscape and the political allegiances of its citizens. For the border population whose lives were turned upside down by the French-German conflict, maps became essential tools for finding a new sense of place and a new sense of identity in their changing national and regional communities. Turning to a previously undiscovered archive of popular maps, Cartophilia reveals Alsace-Lorraine's lively world of citizen mapmakers that included linguists, ethnographers, schoolteachers, hikers, and priests. Together, this fresh group of mapmakers invented new genres of maps that framed French and German territory in original ways through experimental surveying techniques, orientations, scales, colors, and iconography. In focusing on the power of "bottom-up" maps to transform modern European identities, Cartophilia argues that the history of cartography must expand beyond the study of elite maps and shift its emphasis to the democratization of cartography in the modern world.
An instant classic when first published in 1991, How to Lie with Maps revealed how the choices mapmakers make--consciously or unconsciously--mean that every map inevitably presents only one of many possible stories about the places it depicts. The principles Mark Monmonier outlined back then remain true today, despite significant technological changes in the making and use of maps. The introduction and spread of digital maps and mapping software, however, have added new wrinkles to the ever-evolving landscape of modern mapmaking.
Fully updated for the digital age, this new edition of How to Lie with Maps examines the myriad ways that technology offers new opportunities for cartographic mischief, deception, and propaganda. While retaining the same brevity, range, and humor as its predecessors, this third edition includes significant updates throughout as well as new chapters on image maps, prohibitive cartography, and online maps. It also includes an expanded section of color images and an updated list of sources for further reading.
The British Library has one of the largest and most impressive cartographic collections in the world, including manuscript maps and atlases, administrative records and plans, large-scale surveys, and digital maps. From this rich resource, 100 fascinating examples ranging from world and city maps, celestial and sea charts, literary and statistical maps, curiosities and fake maps have been selected as the basis for this puzzle book. Each map is faithfully reproduced with a description of its creation and use, followed by details showing areas of particular interest. Readers are asked to scrutinize the maps to answer a series of historical and geographical questions, all the while enjoying new perspectives on the world we live in provided by our eclectic and extensive archive.
The British Library has one of the largest and most impressive cartographic collections in the world, including manuscript maps and atlases, administrative records and plans, large-scale surveys, and digital maps. From this rich resource, 100 fascinating examples ranging from world and city maps, celestial and sea charts, literary and statistical maps, curiosities and fake maps have been selected as the basis for this puzzle book. Each map is faithfully reproduced with a description of its creation and use, followed by details showing areas of particular interest. Readers are asked to scrutinize the maps to answer a series of historical and geographical questions, all the while enjoying new perspectives on the world we live in provided by our eclectic and extensive archive.
For many, a map is nothing more than a tool used to determine the location or distribution of something--a country, a city, or a natural resource. But maps reveal much more: to really read a map means to examine what it shows and what it doesn't, and to ask who made it, why, and for whom. The contributors to this new volume ask these sorts of questions about maps of Latin America, and in doing so illuminate the ways cartography has helped to shape this region from the Rio Grande to Patagonia.
In Mapping Latin America, Jordana Dym and Karl Offen bring together scholars from a wide range of disciplines to examine and interpret more than five centuries of Latin American maps.Individual chapters take on maps of every size and scale and from a wide variety of mapmakers--from the hand-drawn maps of Native Americans, to those by famed explorers such as Alexander von Humboldt, to those produced in today's newspapers and magazines for the general public. The maps collected here, and the interpretations that accompany them, provide an excellent source to help readers better understand how Latin American countries, regions, provinces, and municipalities came to be defined, measured, organized, occupied, settled, disputed, and understood--that is, how they came to have specific meanings to specific people at specific moments in time.
The first book to deal with the broad sweep of mapping activities across Latin America, this lavishly illustrated volume will be required reading for students and scholars of geography and Latin American history, and anyone interested in understanding the significance of maps in human cultures and societies.
The sea monsters on medieval and Renaissance maps, whether swimming vigorously, gamboling amid the waves, attacking ships, or simply displaying themselves for our appreciation, are one of the most visually engaging elements on these maps, and yet they have never been carefully studied. The subject is important not only in the history of cartography, art, and zoological illustration, but also in the history of the geography of the "marvelous" and of western conceptions of the ocean. Moreover, the sea monsters depicted on maps can supply important insights into the sources, influences, and methods of the cartographers who drew or painted them. In this highly-illustrated book the author analyzes the most important examples of sea monsters on medieval and Renaissance maps produced in Europe, beginning with the earliest mappaemundi on which they appear in the 10th century and continuing to the end of the 16th century.
From dragons and serpents to many-armed beasts that preyed on ships and sailors alike, sea monsters have terrified mariners across all ages and cultures and have become the subject of many tall tales from the sea. Accounts of these creatures have also inspired cartographers and mapmakers, many of whom began decorating their maps with them to indicate unexplored areas or areas about which little was known. Whether swimming vigorously, gamboling amid the waves, attacking ships, or simply displaying themselves for our appreciation, the sea monsters that appear on medieval and Renaissance maps are fascinating and visually engaging. Yet despite their appeal, these monsters have never received the scholarly attention that they deserve.
In Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps, Chet Van Duzer analyzes the most important examples of sea monsters on medieval and Renaissance maps produced in Europe. Van Duzer begins with the earliest mappaemundi on which these monsters appear in the tenth century and continues to the end of the sixteenth century and, along the way, sheds important light on the sources, influences, and methods of the cartographers who drew or painted them.
A beautifully designed visual reference work, Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps will be important not only in the history of cartography, art, and zoological illustration, but also in the history of the geography of the “marvelous” and of Western conceptions of the ocean.
Every map tells a story. Some provide a narrative for travelers, explorers, and surveyors or offer a visual account of changes to people's lives and surroundings, while others tell imaginary tales, transporting us to fictional worlds created by writers and artists. In turn, maps generate more stories, taking users on new journeys in search of knowledge and adventure.
Drawing on the Bodleian Library's outstanding map collection and covering almost a thousand years, Talking Maps takes a new approach to map-making by showing how maps and stories have always been intimately entwined. Including such rare treasures as a unique map of the Mediterranean from the eleventh-century Arabic Book of Curiosities, a twelfth-century map of the world by al-Sharīf al-Idrīsī, and C. S. Lewis's map of Narnia, this fascinating book analyzes maps as objects that enable us to cross sea and land; as windows into alternative and imaginary worlds; as guides to reaching the afterlife; as tools to manage cities, nations, and empires; as images of environmental change; and as digitized visions of the global future.
By telling the stories behind the artifacts and those generated by them, Talking Maps reveals how each map is not just a tool for navigation but also a worldly proposal that helps us to understand who we are by describing where we are.
Spanning the decades from 1934 to 2016, The Going Was Good: Memoir of a Transatlantic Life follows the life of author David Buisseret from his early childhood to his life in retirement. Woven within the text, Buisseret recounts many historical events and trends, not only as a historian, but as someone who experienced the many changes and challenges of the times. Simultaneously, he expounds upon how these events affected his life, both professionally and personally, as well as the lives of his family.
About the Author
David Buisseret has lived an adventure-filled life, travelling first with the Royal Army Service Corps to Egypt and then in his academic life, throughout Europe, Jamaica, and the United States. Now in semi-retirement, Buisseret has taken it upon himself to expand his knowledge to include the natural sciences while continuing his academic work. He is currently working with colleague Bernard Barbiche on a project he hopes to see published by the SociEtE de l'Histoire de France in 2017.
In this beautifully conceived book, Ayesha Ramachandran reconstructs the imaginative struggles of early modern artists, philosophers, and writers to make sense of something that we take for granted: the world, imagined as a whole. Once a new, exciting, and frightening concept, "the world" was transformed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But how could one envision something that no one had ever seen in its totality?
The Worldmakers moves beyond histories of globalization to explore how "the world" itself--variously understood as an object of inquiry, a comprehensive category, and a system of order--was self-consciously shaped by human agents. Gathering an international cast of characters, from Dutch cartographers and French philosophers to Portuguese and English poets, Ramachandran describes a history of firsts: the first world atlas, the first global epic, the first modern attempt to develop a systematic natural philosophy--all part of an effort by early modern thinkers to capture "the world" on the page.