In Volume Two we turn our attention to the mapping traditions of the non-Western world. Our commitment to addressing the cartographic practices of societies outside of Europe stems from the general lack of significant scholarship on the subject. Indeed, the three books of Volume Two constitute the fullest treatment of non-Western cartography ever offered. In presenting non-Western cartography, however, it has been our mission to understand the cartographic traditions of non-Western cultures on their own terms rather than against the Western yardstick of technical innovation. These mapping traditions, when placed within their cultural contexts, are rich with insights into the way different peoples understand and interact with their surroundings. It is hoped that the books of Volume Two not only capture a sense of this richness but also encourage future research that will bring the history of non-Western cartography into the mainstream of the history of cartography. This first book of Volume Two brings together the full range of maps produced in traditional Islamic and South Asian societies from late prehistory onward. The volume discusses Islamic cartography through themes such as the striking heterogeneity of mapping traditions due to the diversity and periodic discontinuity of Islamic culture, the importance of celestial and cosmographical cartography, and the extraordinary technical proficiency of scholars involved in cartographic production. The strong links between Islamic cartography and premodern European cartography are addressed with the understanding that Islamic cartography was not simply a passive preserver of Greek classical knowledge in the centuries between the fall of Rome and the European Renaissance revival of classical ideas. The book then turns to the heretofore undocumented richness of the South Asian mapping traditions. A central theme is the overwhelming importance of cosmographical concepts for South Asian culture and their concomitant influence on mapping. Far from being a secondary form of cartographic production, cosmographical mapping was the quintessential expression of the mapping impulse in South Asian societies. Cosmography was supplemented by a strong legacy of topographical maps, route maps, and architectural plans originating in key regions of the Indian subcontinent (primarily Kashmir, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra), and these terrestrial mapping traditions are also given full treatment.

 

 
 

Volume Two, Book Two, continues our examination of the mapping traditions of the non-Western world by focusing on the cartography of East and Southeast Asia. The book begins with a treatment of prehistoric rock cartography found in various regions throughout Asia. This discussion parallels the discussion of prehistoric cartography in Europe, developed in Volume One. Following this is a discussion of the cartographic traditions of East Asia. As the introduction to this section suggests, East Asia is best considered a cultural category founded on commonalities of politics (bureaucratic hereditary monarchy), language (use of Classical Chinese by the elite), and philosophy (Neo-Confucianism). Though these factors did not produce a homogeneous cultural region, the common threads they represented did link China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam to each other, and these links are evident when examining the cartographic record. Specifically, East Asian cartography can be characterized by its emphasis on aesthetic principles that link map making as much to painting and poetry as to science and technology and by its strong textual tradition that embeds cartographic meaning within the framework of the written text. Throughout the section, East Asian cartography is examined from the perspective of politics, measurement, the arts, cosmography, and the influence of the West. Compared to the cultural unity of East Asia, the smaller geographic region of Southeast Asia is incredibly diverse. The cartographic traditions of Burma (Myanmar), Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines are most unified by cosmographical maps that reflect the related Buddhist and Hindu world views that dominate the region. Terrestrial maps, however, show remarkable variation—particularly when one compares the surviving corpus from Burma and Thailand with maps from Malaysia and the East Indies. These maps range from large to small scale and include maps of broad regions, route maps, and maps of rural and urban localities. In addition, a small but significant group of nautical charts have been uncovered in Southeast Asia, mostly the work of Javanese pilots. Finally, in addition to cosmographical, terrestrial, and nautical maps, this region has been the source of a number of architectural plans depicting the expansive sacred temples built to celebrate Buddhist and Hindu spirituality.

 

 
 

This final installment of Volume Two considers the traditional mapping practices of societies in Africa, the Americas, the Arctic, Australia, and the Pacific Islands. Of the published volumes thus far, this one most fully elaborates the broad definition of ‘map’ laid out in Volume One. Despite incredible variations in geographic setting and cultural practice this book clearly demonstrates strong parallels between the cartographic practices of these traditional societies. In particular, we examine the prominence of cosmological subject matter in the cartographic record, the emphasis on the ritualistic uses and often ephemeral nature of cartographic materials, the fusion of time and space in the world views and maps, the primacy of the center and the circle as geometric concepts, the practice of using maps to represent both the spatial layout of the landscape and the important cultural events that have occurred there, and the participatory nature of all cultural representation, which intimately ties the practice of mapping to the human lifeworld. This book is significant from the viewpoint of historiography in the history of cartography in that it relies heavily on the expertise of anthropologists. In so doing, it marks an important step toward a truly interdisciplinary history of cartography and helps to draw an exciting new perspective into the debate over the nature of maps. In addition, in keeping with the scholarship presented in Volume Two, Books One and Two, this book examines mapping traditions founded on principles different from the cartographic practices of Europe—traditions that are only comprehensible when situated within the cultural contexts that have called them into existence and shaped their development. It is this commitment to proper contextualization that has made the History of Cartography series the leading reference work in the field.

 

 
 

This volume resumes the chronological treatment of mapping in Europe and the Mediterranean region begun in Volume One. A central theme is the nature of the transition from Medieval to Renaissance cartography. Does this transition constitute a significant revolution in mapmaking and map use, and does studying the cartographic history of this period contribute to a general understanding of such notions as "renaissance" and "modernity"? A series of interpretive essays will attempt to address these issues by placing cartography within the context of Renaissance society. The relationship of maps to Renaissance culture will be explored through the themes of continuity and change in the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance; the visual, textual, and mathematical models influencing mapping; and the changing nature of the Renaissance world view due to the influence of new scientific practices, travel writing, religious reformations, transformations in geographical imagination, and encounters with various non-Europeans. In addition, Renaissance maps will be examined in terms of the technical skills used to create them, the political contexts and purposes that put them to use, and the circumstances of production and consumption that governed their economic capacity. This section will also describe the cartographic literacy and general map use that characterized Renaissance Europe.   Major portions of Volume Three relate the thematic and contextual issues laid out in the interpretive essays to the various national contexts of Renaissance terrestrial mapping. A brief introduction will provide an overview of the national boundaries in place during the time period and will also address the reasons for adopting a national approach to Renaissance cartography. Later essays will discuss the cartographic endeavors of the Italian States, Portugal, Spain, the German States, the Low Countries, France, the British Isles, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and Russia. These essays comprise a section we refer to as "national traditions," and they will provide the particulars of map production and map use that complement the thematic and generalized approach laid out in the first part of the volume. The national traditions essays will constitute a thorough bibliographical account of the rich cartographic production of Renaissance Europe. In addition, detailed appendixes will provide exhaustive reference lists, including authoritative lists of all editions of Ptolemy's Geography and the major manuscript world maps. We expect that this twofold approach to Renaissance cartography will satisfy the needs of our diverse readership for both historical context and detailed treatment of individual artifacts and will provide a benchmark for future scholarship on Renaissance maps and mapping across a variety of disciplines.

 

 
 

Volume Four treats mapping in eighteenth-century Europe and its overseas empires within the contexts of national administration and of colonial expansion. The philosophies of the natural sciences, the new concept of the nation-state, and the burgeoning colonial structure driving most of the demand for cartography in this period will provide much of the historical context, particularly for maritime mapping. Other themes will include the increasing use of maps by governments and ruling elites, the steadily evolving professional identity of mapmakers and the changing structure of patronage, and the role of changing patterns of agricultural land tenure in mapping. The outline for the volume has been designed to bring the section on colonial cartography in line with Volume Three; indeed, the structure of Volumes Three and Four is intended to be comparable so that themes may be traced from one to the next.

 

 
 

Volume Six will document and discuss the effect of twentieth century technological developments on cartography. By then, with five volumes published, we should be in a unique position to reinterpret the rise of present-day mapping from a social as well as a technological perspective.

 

Last Updated: 26 July 2007.