77. Annu-Maaria Nivala, Stephen Brewster and L. Tiina Sarjakoski, ‘Usability Evaluation of Web Mapping Sites’, Cartographic Journal, 45/2 (2008), pp. 129–38.
78. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm.
79. Crampton, Mapping, pp. 139–40.
80. Ed Parsons, personal interview, November 2009.
81. Vittoria de Palma, ‘Zoom: Google Earth and Global Intimacy’, in Vittoria de Palma, Diana Periton and Marina Lathouri (eds.), Intimate Metropolis: Urban Subjects in the Modern City (Oxford, 2009), pp. 239–70, at pp. 241–2; Douglas Vandegraft, ‘Using Google Earth for Fun and Functionality’, ACSM Bulletin, (June 2007), pp. 28–32.
82. J. Lennart Berggren and Alexander Jones (eds. and trans.), Ptolemy’s Geography: An Annotated Translation of the Theoretical Chapters (Princeton, 2000), p. 117.
83. Allen, ‘A Mirror of our World’, pp. 3–8.
84. Simon Greenman, personal email communication, December 2010.
CONCLUSION: THE EYE OF HISTORY
1. J. B. Harley and David Woodward (eds.), The History of Cartography, vol. 1: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean (Chicago, 1987), p. 508.
2. Rob Kitchin and Martin Dodge, ‘Rethinking Maps’, Progress in Human Geography, 31/3 (2007), pp. 331–44, at p. 343.
3. Albrecht Penck, ‘The Construction of a Map of the World on a Scale of 1:1,000,000’, Geographical Journal, 1/3 (1893), pp. 253–61, at p. 254.
4. Ibid., p. 256.
5. Ibid., p. 259.
6. Ibid., p. 254.
7. A. R. Hinks, quoted in G. R. Crone, ‘The Future of the International Million Map of the World’, Geographical Journal, 128/1 (1962), pp. 36–8, at p. 38.
8. Michael Heffernan, ‘Geography, Cartography and Military Intelligence: The Royal Geographical Society and the First World War’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, new series, 21/3 (1996), pp. 504–33.
9. M. N. MacLeod, ‘The International Map’, Geographical Journal, 66/5 (1925), pp. 445–9.
10. Quoted in Alastair Pearson, D. R. Fraser Taylor, Karen Kline and Michael Heffernan, ‘Cartographic Ideals and Geopolitical Realities: International Maps of the World from the 1890s to the Present’, Canadian Geographer, 50/2 (2006), pp. 149–75, at p. 157.
11. Trygve Lie, ‘Statement by the Secretary-General’, World Cartography, 1 (1951), p. v.
12. ‘Summary of International Meetings of Interest to Cartography (1951–1952)’, World Cartography, 2 (1952), p. 103.
13. ‘The International Map of the World on the Millionth Scale and the International Co-operation in the Field of Cartography’, World Cartography, 3 (1953), pp. 1–13.
14. Sandor Radó, ‘The World Map at the Scale of 1:2500 000’, Geographical Journal, 143/3 (1977), pp. 489–90.
15. Quoted in Pearson et al., ‘Cartographic Ideals’, p. 163.
16. David Rhind, ‘Current Shortcomings of Global Mapping and the Creation of a New Geographical Framework for the World’, Geographical Journal, 166/4 (2000), pp. 295–305.
17. http://www.globalmap.org/english/index.html. See Pearson et al., ‘Cartographic Ideals’, pp. 165–72.
Acknowledgements
Readers of this book’s title might be surprised to see its affinity with Neil MacGregor’s A History of the World in 100 Objects (2010). Should anyone think that I am taking my admiration for MacGregor’s wonderful book a little too far, I should perhaps point out that my own title was agreed (with the same publisher) back in 2006, and that I am not at all put out that he has used the formulation before me. Such is the nature of trying to capture the zeitgeist! Although the idea behind the book was conceived six years ago, it is the culmination of nearly twenty years of thinking about and publishing on maps. In that time I have been fortunate to have learnt from many friends and colleagues in the history of cartography, who have generously taken the time to read portions of the book, and provide invaluable criticism. At the British Museum Irving Finkel shared his voluminous knowledge of the Babylonian world map, and was kind enough to send me material on the subject. Mike Edwards very helpfully read the chapter on Ptolemy. Emilie Savage-Smith discussed with me, although I suspect she will not necessarily agree with all of my conclusions. Paul Harvey probably knows more about medieval mappaemundi than anyone else, and was extremely generous in his comments on the Hereford map, while Julia Boffey and Dan Terkla also offered helpful ideas for further reading. Gari Ledyard is the world’s leading expert on the Korean Kangnido map, and steered me through the complexities of early Korean cartography. Kenneth R. Robinson generously provided me with a series of indispensable articles on the Kangnido and Korean history, and Cordell Yee offered insightful suggestions on Chinese materials. The wonderful Timothy Brook provided help on the Kangnido’s Chinese sources and was gracious enough to enable me to reproduce a copy of Qingjun’s map, which was his find, not mine. At the US Library of Congress John Hessler allowed me access to papers relating to the acquisition of the Waldseemüller map, and also offered incisive comments on my chapter. Philip D. Burden shared his great love of antique maps as well as the remarkable story of evaluating Waldseemüller’s map. Joaquim Alves Gaspar provided important research on sixteenth-century projections which helped on Ribeiro. Nick Crane gave me the benefit of his extensive knowledge on Mercator. Jan Werner commented extensively on the Blaeu chapter. David A. Bell offered shrewd ideas on the Cassini material and Josef Konvitz clarified some of its more arcane dimensions. Mark Monmonier read both the Mercator and Peters chapters with his typically penetrating eye. Dave Vest of Mythicsoft helped me on the technical aspects of Google Earth: his expertise rescued me on many occasions, for which I am extremely grateful. Simon Greenman also offered an insider’s view of the rise of online mapping, and Patricia Seed provided a shrewd critique. At Google, Ed Parsons was enormously supportive of the entire project; he found time to conduct several interviews with me, provided access to a range of people, and also read the Google chapter. Even though the book has many reservations about Google’s methods, Ed was exemplary in listening to criticism in my version of the Google Earth story. Many others have answered questions and provided references, including Angelo Cattaneo, Matthew Edney, John Paul Jones III, Eddy Maes, Nick Millea and Hilde De Weerdt. Christopher Nugee QC and Jim Smith spotted several errors, all of which were mine.
The completion of this book was supported by a generous research leave grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (ahrc.co.uk). The AHRC supports research that furthers our understanding of human culture and creativity, and I am very grateful that a book on the history of world mapmaking should be part of this endeavour. As a trustee of the J. B. Harley Trust, I have the great fortune to work with some of the world’s leading experts in the history of cartography, and I would like to thank Peter Barber, Sarah Bendall, Catherine Delano-Smith, Felix Driver, David Fletcher, Paul Harvey, Roger Kain, Rose Mitchell, Sarah Tyacke and Charles Withers for helping me more than they probably know. Catherine supported the project from the outset and answered innumerable queries, as did Peter and Tony Campbell. I am deeply grateful to Peter and Catherine in particular for clarifying what the book was trying to achieve in its early stages, and all their help and friendship over the years. I am particularly fortunate that Peter took the time to read the entire manuscript, offering me the benefit of his unparalled expertise.
While writing the book, I was delighted to be asked to present a three-part BBC television series, ‘Maps: Power, Plunder and Possession’, which helped me not only to consolidate my relationship to many of the extraordinary maps that appear in this book but also to understand the importance of the story I have tried to tell. I am deeply grateful to the wonderful team responsible for making the series, in particular Louis Caulfield, Tom Cebula, Annabel Hobley, Helen Nixon and Ali Pares, and to Anne Laking and Richard Klein for commissioning the series.
Nearly every book I have written acknowledges the institutional support of Queen Mary, and this one is no exception. I am grateful to the English Department for allowing me a period of sabbatical leave to complete the research for the book, and in particular to Michèle Barrett, Julia Boffey, Markman Ellis, Alfred Hiatt, my surrogate Jewish mother Lisa Jardine, Philip Ogden, Chris Reid, Peggy Reynolds, Bill Schwarz and Morag Shiach. I only wish that the late Kevin Sharpe had the opportunity to read it; he is greatly missed, but never forgotten. As ever, David Colclough has been the greatest of friends, and it is a pleasure once again to thank him for sustaining me through a shared love of everything from Milton and Mercator to 1980s indie music.
When I was young, my limited book collection mainly consisted of Picador and Penguin titles, so I often have to pinch myself to appreciate that I ended up having Peter Straus as my agent and Stuart Proffitt as my editor. Peter is a legend and I want to thank him for all he has done for me over the last five years. Stuart has been an exemplary editor whose tireless labour on the book has been quite extraordinary (even as I write this I think of him, and worry over my sentence construction). I would like to acknowledge all his hard work and that of everyone at Allen Lane, especially Stuart’s assistant, Shan Vahidy, for making this book possible. Elizabeth Stratford provided exemplary copy editing, and Cecilia Mackay was the best picture researcher I have ever worked with, extracting a series of seemingly impossible images with effortless ease.
Throughout the writing of this book I have needed the patience, humour, diversion and support of my friends and family. I would like to thank all the Brottons – Alan, Bernice, Peter, Susan, Diane and Tariq – for their faith in me, as well as Sophie and Dominik Beissel, Emma and James Lambe for Castle Farm, the ‘Shed’, and grandparenting above and beyond the call of duty. Simon Curtis, Matthew Dimmock, Rachel Garistina, Tim Marlow and Tanya Hudson, Rob Nixon, Grayson and Philippa Perry, Richard Scholar and Ita McCarthy, James Scott, Guy Richards Smit and Rebecca Chamberlain, and Dave and Emily Vest have all been great friends and helped me in particular and vital ways. Dafydd Roberts provided crucial help in translating key materials, and Michael Wheare was an indefatigable research assistant. Peter Florence provided me with ‘The West Wing’ and an unforgettable fortieth birthday in Granada, as well as the intellectual space to develop my own cultural geography. One of the book’s inspirations was the work of my late friend Denis Cosgrove, who taught me so much about the global and transcendent possibilities of maps, and whose presence still pervades much of what I write.
I am fortunate to call Adam Lowe my greatest friend, and want to salute him as the presiding genius behind this book. Whenever I despair of the value of the arts, I look at what Adam does, and it fills me with wonder and inspiration. My world is an infinitely better place for his presence in it, for which I bless him on most days. I hope we will create more worlds within worlds together in the future.
Six years ago, I met my wife, Charlotte, for the second time. Since then she has filled my life with her love, and that of our two young children, Ruby and Hardie. Without Charlotte there would be no book, and very possibly no author. She has kept me going with passion, care, intelligence and sweeties, and gives me more in life than I ever thought possible. I love her beyond any measure expressed throughout the course of this book, which is why I dedicate it to her.
Index
The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. The link provided will take you to the beginning of that print page. You may need to scroll forward from that location to find the corresponding reference on your e-reader.
Page references in italic indicate Figures and illustrations.
Aachen 223
Abbasid Caliphate 59–60, 63, 64, 66
abstraction 7
Académie des Sciences 298–300, 301–9, 322, 329
Achilles’ shield 22–4, 23
ACSM (American Congress of Surveying and Mapping) 382, 400–401
Action Aid 380
Adam 90, 107
Adwords 430–31
aeronautical charts 442
Afer 101
Africa
Berlin Conference on Africa 345
and the Brandt Report 398
decolonization 376–7
in the Hereford mappamundi 85, 88–9
Ibn H.awqal’s world map 65
world map 58
imperial mapping 344–6
Internet penetration 434
and Isidore of Seville 101
in the Kangnido map 118–19
on the Mercator projection 247, 391
on the Peters projection 383, 391
Portuguese discoveries about circumnavigation of 162, 173, 187
and Sallust 97–8
usual representation in twentieth-century atlases 391
in the Waldseemüller map 173
see also Libya
Agier, Pierre-Jean 327
agricultural ‘well-field’ system 127
ahl al- (People of the Book) 56
Albert, Prince 396
Alcáçovas, Treaty of 186
Alcazaba, Simón de 203
Alexander the Great 17, 32, 33, 59, 87–8, 103
Alexander VI, Pope 186
Alexandria, Egypt 17–19, 36, 38, 40, 41, 200
in the Kangnido map 119
library 18–19, 21, 35, 41, 44, 52
museum 18
Allart, Huyck 272
Almagest (Ptolemy) 41–3, 70
Alpers, Svetlana 265
AltaVista 423
Alvarez (Portuguese agent) 196
Ambari 89
The Ambassadors (Holbein) 215–16, 215
Ambrose, St 92
Amerbach, Johannes 157
America
in Blaeu’s 1662 world map 288
categorized as an island 154, 167, 180, 184
Columbus’s voyages to 152–3
and the European Renaissance 148, 150–51
on the Mercator projection 247, 391
in Mercator’s 1538 map of the world 235
on Mercator’s globe 227
naming of 174, 178–9, 184
in Ribeiro’s world map 208
USA see United States of America
in the Waldseemüller map 146, 150, 173–5, 177
Waldseemüller map as ‘birth document’ of 146–7, 150–51, 154–5, 174
American Congress of Surveying and Mapping (ACSM) 382, 400–401
American Express 149
Amsterdam 262, 267, 268, 280, 283, 291
Town Hall with its People’s Hall 260–61, 262–3
Anacletus II, Pope 68
Anaximander 25–7
Anderson, Benedict 335
Angeli, Jacopo 160–61
Antarctica 253, 269
‘anthropogeography’ 353, 370
see also human geography
Antwerp 222, 224, 226, 240, 258
Anville, Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’ 315
AOL 149
Apian, Peter 167, 178
Apollo 288, 289
Apollo 17 spacecraft, photos of the earth 377–8, 385
Apollo’s temple, Delphi 26
Apulia 68, 69
aqua fortis 323
De Arca Noe Mystica (Hugh of Saint-Victor) 104
Archimedes 18
Arçon, Jean-Claude Le Michaud d’ 328
Aristagoras of Miletus 32
Aristippus, Henry 70
Aristophanes 32–3
Aristotle 30–32, 33, 61, 98, 155, 223
and Mercator 224
Meteorologica 30, 31–2, 70
Ark, Noah’s 87, 96, 103, 104–5
Armenia
in the Hereford map
pamundi 87
Urartu 2
Arminians 274
Arnaud, Rémi 416
ARPANET 415
artists’ reproductions of Dutch maps 272–3
Asia
and the Brandt Report 398
Communism in South-east Asia 376
decolonization of South Asia 376–7
earliest East Asian world map see Kangnido map
in the Hereford mappamundi 85, 87–8
and Herodotus 27–8
in Ibn H.awqal’s world map 65
Internet penetration 434
in Mercator’s 1569 map of the world 247, 248
modern map of East Asia in 14th to 15th century 116
on the Peters projection 391
and Ptolemy 171–2, 195
in the Waldseemüller map 171
Asia Minor, in Hereford mappamundi 87
Assur 101
Assyria 2, 101
astronomy
Babylonian 25
and the Cassini map of France 298–307, 309–11
Chinese 125, 126
Dutch 267
and Gall’s projection 394–5
and geography 19, 40–41, 301–7, 309–11
Greek 21, 28, 30, 35–6, 39–40, 41–3, 45, 47–8
as a mapmaker’s resource 6
Atlantic Ocean 197–8, 200, 363, 368, 405
Atlantis/Atlas Appendix (Willem Blaeu) 276–7
Atlas (Mercator) 256, 258, 275, 287
Atlas maior (Blaeu) 265–6, 282, 284–93, 431, 437–8
Atlas maior (Janssonius) 291
Atlas of the Real World: Mapping the Way We Live (Dorling et al.) 403–4
Attalid dynasty 38
Aubin, Mark 417–18, 421
Augsburg 171
Augustine, St 92, 93–6, 100
Augustus Caesar 92
Australasia, Internet penetration 434
Australia 261, 288
Austrian Netherlands 315
Austrian War of Succession 315
Averroes (Ibn Rushd) 66
axis mundi 8–9
azimuthal projection 233, 234, 342
Azores 119, 155
BAAS (British Association for the Advancement of Science) 393, 395, 396
A History of the World in 12 Maps Page 61