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A review by nwhyte
A History of the World in 12 Maps by Jerry Brotton
4.0
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2731983.html
This is the sort of history of science that I very much approve of, taking twelve well-known historical maps and weaving around them the story of how cartography has changed in line with political needs and technological developments.
There are actually thirteen maps discussed in detail rather than twelve (though The Atlantic's review has a good overview of the twelve):
The oldest known map, a cuneiform tablet from Babylon
Ptolemy's Geography
Al-Idrīsī's Tabula Rogeriana
the Hereford Mappamundi
the Korean Kangnido
Martin Waldseemüller's map, the first to use the word "America"
Diogo Ribeiro's world map, which helped Spain to claim the moluccas
Mercator's world map
Blaeu's Atlas
the Cassini dynasty's mapping of France
Halford Mackinder's geopolitical thesis
the Peters Projection
and Google Earth.
It's arguable that this represents only a partial snapshot of the history of the world - geographically, most of these are from within the European/Middle Eastern space, and chronologically three are from the sixteenth century and another two from the centuries immediately before and after. But I think it's legitimate for a London-based Professor of Renaissance Studies to write about what he knows, while pointing out that there are also other times and places which the interested reader can go and find out more about.
Brotton is particularly good at unpicking the ideological choices made by mapmakers at all periods, explaining how the demands of the reader / viewer / customer / patron impact on what is actually shown, and chiseling away at any concept of a perfectly representative map. For those of us who were exposed to the sociology of knowledge at an impressionable age, it's a good bit of re-education. His deconstruction of the more distant cultures in time and space sets him up nicely for brutal dissections of Halford Mackinder and the Peters Projection, and also sets the scene for the last chapter's interrogation of Google Earth. What we see on the map is what the map-maker has chosen to show us - not what is actually there.
This is the sort of history of science that I very much approve of, taking twelve well-known historical maps and weaving around them the story of how cartography has changed in line with political needs and technological developments.
There are actually thirteen maps discussed in detail rather than twelve (though The Atlantic's review has a good overview of the twelve):
The oldest known map, a cuneiform tablet from Babylon
Ptolemy's Geography
Al-Idrīsī's Tabula Rogeriana
the Hereford Mappamundi
the Korean Kangnido
Martin Waldseemüller's map, the first to use the word "America"
Diogo Ribeiro's world map, which helped Spain to claim the moluccas
Mercator's world map
Blaeu's Atlas
the Cassini dynasty's mapping of France
Halford Mackinder's geopolitical thesis
the Peters Projection
and Google Earth.
It's arguable that this represents only a partial snapshot of the history of the world - geographically, most of these are from within the European/Middle Eastern space, and chronologically three are from the sixteenth century and another two from the centuries immediately before and after. But I think it's legitimate for a London-based Professor of Renaissance Studies to write about what he knows, while pointing out that there are also other times and places which the interested reader can go and find out more about.
Brotton is particularly good at unpicking the ideological choices made by mapmakers at all periods, explaining how the demands of the reader / viewer / customer / patron impact on what is actually shown, and chiseling away at any concept of a perfectly representative map. For those of us who were exposed to the sociology of knowledge at an impressionable age, it's a good bit of re-education. His deconstruction of the more distant cultures in time and space sets him up nicely for brutal dissections of Halford Mackinder and the Peters Projection, and also sets the scene for the last chapter's interrogation of Google Earth. What we see on the map is what the map-maker has chosen to show us - not what is actually there.