Cartographic services firm Lovell Johns posted this on their blog last April: 5 production processes in map making that are no longer in use. Includes such diverse elements as scribing, waxed type and rotring pens. Darkrooms! [Kenneth Field]
Tag: history of cartography
H-Maps, a New Discussion List About Map History
Despite the imminent shutdown of Yahoo Groups, and the lamented demise of MapHist in 2012, discussion lists are still a thing, it seems: H-Net, that venerable purveyor of academic discussion lists since I was in academia, has, with the collaboration of the International Society for the History of the Map, launched H-Maps, “an international digital forum in the historical study of the making, circulation, use and preservation of maps from the ancient to the contemporary period.” Scholarly in focus, to be sure.
Tony Campbell lists other discussion lists related to map history here.
Cartography: The Ideal and Its History
Apple Books
Bookshop
Matthew H. Edney’s Cartography: The Ideal and Its History (University of Chicago Press, April) is a full-throated jeremiad against the concept of cartography itself—the ideal of cartography, which after 237 densely argued pages Edney says “is quite simply indefensible.” Or as the subtitle to the first chapter states: “There is no such thing as cartography, and this is a book about it.”
On the surface this is a startling argument to make, particularly for Edney, who holds two roles that are very much about cartography and its history: he’s the Osher Professor in the History of Cartography at the University of Southern Maine (where, among other things, he’s affiliated with the Osher Map Library) and the current director of the History of Cartography Project. With this book, Edney is essentially undermining the foundations of his own profession.
Monmonier’s Latest: Connections and Content
Mark Monmonier’s latest book, Connections and Content: Reflections on Networks and the History of Cartography (Esri Press, August ebook/September paperback) is about “the relationships between networks and maps”—what does that mean? Apparently: triangulation networks, postal networks, telegraph networks survey networks, astronomical observations and other underlying data. Steven Seegel interviews Monmonier about the book for the New Books in Geography podcast. [Amazon]
‘How to Draw a Map’ Is Not About How to Draw a Map
In How to Draw a Map (HarperCollins UK, September), father and son cartographers Alexander and Malcolm Swanston provide “a fascinating meditation on the centuries-old art of map-making, from the first astronomical maps to the sophisticated GPS guides of today.” In other words, title not to be taken literally: as you can tell from the online excerpt available here, it’s a potted history of mapmaking—a familiar genre around these parts. [Amazon, Apple Books]
History of Cartography Project Updates
The first three volumes of the History of Cartography Project will be published in Chinese next year, “completing a translation project that began in 2014,” the Project announced on Facebook last week.
The Project was one subject of an international seminar on the history of cartography held at Yunnan University last month. Project director Matthew Edney gave the opening remarks, the text of which is here.
Meanwhile, Volume Four is in galleys and is now scheduled for publication in January 2020, and work continues on Volume Five. Volume Six, covering the 20th century, came out in 2015.
(Remember that the first three volumes, plus Volume Six, are available as free downloads.)
First You Make the Maps
First You Make the Maps, a Story Map produced for Lapham’s Quarterly by Elizabeth Della Zazzera, surveys maps and mapmaking for sea navigation from the 15th through the 18th centuries.
From the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, European powers sent voyagers to lands farther and farther away from the continent in an expansionist period we now call the Age of Exploration. These journeys were propelled by religious fervor and fierce colonial sentiment—and an overall desire for new trade routes. They would not have been possible without the rise of modern cartography. While geographically accurate maps had existed before, the Age of Exploration saw the emergence of a sustained tradition of topographic surveying. Maps were being made specifically to guide travelers. Technology progressed quickly through the centuries, helping explorers and traders find their way to new imperial outposts—at least sometimes. On other occasions, hiccups in cartographic reasoning led their users even farther astray.
[Kottke]
Joseph E. Schwartzberg, 1928-2018
The History of Cartography Project notes the passing of Joseph E. Schwartzberg, who died on 18 September at the age of 90. A geographer, peace activist and world federalist, he specialized in the cartography of south Asia, editing the 1978 Historical Atlas of South Asia and serving as associate editor for books one and two of the third volume of The History of Cartography, for which he also wrote eleven chapters. Obituary in the Star Tribune.
The Limits to Mapping
“The Limits to Mapping,” a talk Matthew Edney gave at Yale University last week as part of the Franke Program series of lectures, is now available on YouTube.
Edney, who’s Osher Professor in the History of Cartography at the University of Southern Maine and the director of the History of Cartography Project (his name’s come up before), also has a new book coming out next year: Cartography: The Ideal and Its History (University of Chicago Press) is apparently an argument about how problematic cartography as an all-encompassing concept is, which ought to make for an interesting read.
Geographers on Film
The Library of Congress’s Geographers on Film collection is a video archive of interviews with cartographers and geographers conducted during the 1970s and 1980s. About 300 interviews were apparently conducted; 28 are online so far. Interview subjects include Walter Ristow, Arthur Robinson (in 1972 and 1984) and Waldo Tobler, among others.
History of Cartography Project’s Sixth Volume Now Available Online
The History of Cartography Project’s sixth volume, covering the twentieth century, came out three years ago. Edited by Mark Monmonier, it comprised two physical books and nearly two thousand pages and had a list price of $500. That physical edition is still available (e.g. on Amazon), but as of this month it’s available online for free in PDF form, like the first three volumes in the series. (Volumes four and five are still being prepared; volume four, covering the European Enlightenment, is slated to arrive in 2019.) [NLS]
An Interview with Joaquim Alves Gaspar, Nautical Historian
The European Research Council has an interview with the first recipient of the ERC Starting Grant to work in the field of history of cartography: Dr. Joaquim Alves Gaspar, a former Portuguese naval officer who is exploring the origins of the first European nautical charts. [Osher]
Abraham Ortelius as Google Doodle
On this day in 1570, says Google, Abraham Ortelius published the first modern atlas, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. As a result he’s the subject of one of today’s Google Doodles. Google, of course, has some small interest in maps. [Nathaniel Kelso]
The Unrecognized Women of Cartography
The Future Mapping Company looks at the unrecognized women of cartography. They point out that there are only two women (Marie Tharp and Jessamine Shumate) among the 200-plus names on Wikipedia’s list of cartographers, and come up with 10 names, some of which you might have heard of (Tharp, Phyllis Pearsall), others maybe you haven’t, but should have—and now you have. [NLS]
A Book Roundup
The Routledge Handbook
Out last month, the expensive, 600-page Routledge Handbook of Mapping and Cartography (Routledge). Edited by Alexander J. Kent (who co-wrote The Red Atlas) and Peter Vujakovic, the book “draws on the wealth of new scholarship and practice in this emerging field, from the latest conceptual developments in mapping and advances in map-making technology to reflections on the role of maps in society. It brings together 43 engaging chapters on a diverse range of topics, including the history of cartography, map use and user issues, cartographic design, remote sensing, volunteered geographic information (VGI), and map art.” [The History of Cartography Project]
New Academic Books
New academic books on maps and cartography published over the past couple of months include:
- The Social Life of Maps in America, 1750-1860 (University of North Carolina Press), the latest work by the historian of early American map literacy Martin Brückner;
- Paul Robert Magocsi’s Carpathian Rus’: A Historical Atlas (University of Toronto Press), a cartographic look at a strategic borderland in central Europe;
- Jasper Van Putten’s Networked Nation: Mapping German Cities in Sebastian Munster’s ‘Cosmographia’ (Brill), a study of city views in Renaissance Europe; and
- Claire Reddleman’s Cartographic Abstraction in Contemporary Art: Seeing with Maps (Routledge), an extremely theoretical study of modern map art.
More on Books We’ve Heard of Before
National Geographic interviews Malachy Tallack, the author of The Un-Discovered Islands, and The Guardian shares seven maps from James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti’s Where the Animals Go.
Related: Map Books of 2017.