A History of the World in 12 Maps

by Jerry Brotton

Overview

A New York Times Bestseller
 
“Maps allow the armchair traveler to roam the world, the diplomat to argue his points, the ruler to administer his country, the warrior to plan his campaigns and the propagandist to boost his cause… rich and beautiful.” – Wall Street Journal

Throughout history, maps have been fundamental in shaping our view of the world, and our place in it. But far from being purely scientific objects, maps of the world are unavoidably ideological and subjective, intimately bound up with the systems of power and authority of particular times and places. Mapmakers do not simply represent the world, they construct it out of the ideas of their age. In this scintillating book, Jerry Brotton examines the significance of 12 maps - from the almost mystical representations of ancient history to the satellite-derived imagery of today. He vividly recreates the environments and circumstances in which each of the maps was made, showing how each conveys a highly individual view of the world. Brotton shows how each of his maps both influenced and reflected contemporary events and how, by considering it in all its nuances and omissions, we can better understand the world that produced it.

Although the way we map our surroundings is more precise than ever before, Brotton argues that maps today are no more definitive or objective than they have ever been. Readers of this beautifully illustrated and masterfully argued book will never look at a map in quite the same way again.

“A fascinating and panoramic new history of the cartographer’s art.”
– The Guardian
 
“The intellectual background to these images is conveyed with beguiling erudition…. There is nothing more subversive than a map.”
– The Spectator
 
“A mesmerizing and beautifully illustrated book.”
—The Telegraph

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143126027
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/28/2014
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	544
Sales rank:	181,866
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.40(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jerry Brotton is a professor of Renaissance studies at Queen Mary University of London. A renowned broadcaster and critic, he is the author of Global Interests: Renaissance Art Between East and West (with Lisa Jardine), The Renaissance Bazaar, The Sale of the Late King’s Goods (short-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize and the Hessell-Tiltman Prize), Great Maps, and The New York Times bestselling, award-winning A History of the World in Twelve Maps, which has been translated into eleven languages. His most recent book, published as The Sultan and the Queen in the US (and This Orient Isle in the UK), tells the fascinated story of Queen Elizabeth’s outreach to the Ottoman Sultan and to Muslim rulers in Iran and Morocco, which began shortly after she was excommunicated by the Pope and most of Europe’s markets were closed to her Protestant and Jewish merchants. It describes the birth of the joint stock company, and how trade with the east formed the basis for the future British empire.

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Introduction
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Excerpted from "A History of the World in 12 Maps"
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Copyright © 2014 Jerry Brotton.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
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Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

List of Figures xi

List of Illustrations xv

Introduction 1

1 Science: Ptolemy's Geography, c. AD 150 17

2 Exchange: Al-Idrisi, AD 1154 54

3 Faith: Hereford Mappamundi, c. 1300 82

4 Empire: Kangnido World Map, 1402 114

5 Discovery: Martin Waldseemüller, World Map, 1507 146

6 Globalism: Diogo Ribeiro, World Map, 1529 186

7 Toleration: Gerard Mercator, World Map, 1569 218

8 Money: Joan Blaeu, Atlas maior, 1662 260

9 Nation: The Cassini Family, Map of France, 1793 294

10 Geopolitics: Halford Mackinder, 'The Geographical Pivot of History', 1904 337

11 Equality: The Peters Projection, 1973 373

12 Information: Google Earth, 2012 405

Conclusion: The Eye of History? 437

Notes 447

Acknowledgements 483

Index 487

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“[A] rewarding journey for the intellectually intrepid.”
—Kirkus
 
 
“If there’s a single takeaway from this fascinating and richly illustrated book, it’s that mapmaking is perennially contentious.”
—The Daily Beast
 
 
 “A stimulating and thought-provoking study of how the mixing of science, politics, and even religion influenced and continues to influence cartography.”
—Booklist
 
“This history of 12 epoch-defining maps—including Google’s—is a revelation… Brotton offers an excellent guide to understanding these influential attempts at psychogeographical transcendence.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
 
“Maps allow the armchair traveler to roam the world, the diplomat to argue his points, the ruler to administer his country, the warrior to plan his campaigns and the propagandist to boost his cause.  In addition, they can be extraordinarily beautiful… All these facets are represented in British historian Jerry Brotton’s rich A History of the World in 12 Maps.”
—Wall Street Journal
 
 
“Author Jerry Brotton's book dips into maps spanning millenia of human experience, from Ptolemy's Geography (circa 150 AD) all the way up to Google Earth, the dynamic, increasingly omnipresent Internet Age way that we answer the age-old question "Where am I?" …Along the way, he finds some marvelous things.”
—Christian Science Monitor

Editorial Reviews

[A] rewarding journey for the intellectually intrepid.”
—Kirkus
 
 
“If there’s a single takeaway from this fascinating and richly illustrated book, it’s that mapmaking is perennially contentious.”
—The Daily Beast
 
 
 “A stimulating and thought-provoking study of how the mixing of science, politics, and even religion influenced and continues to influence cartography.”
—Booklist
 
“This history of 12 epoch-defining maps—including Google’s—is a revelation… Brotton offers an excellent guide to understanding these influential attempts at psychogeographical transcendence.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
 
“Maps allow the armchair traveler to roam the world, the diplomat to argue his points, the ruler to administer his country, the warrior to plan his campaigns and the propagandist to boost his cause.  In addition, they can be extraordinarily beautiful… All these facets are represented in British historian Jerry Brotton’s rich A History of the World in 12 Maps.”
—Wall Street Journal
 
 
“Author Jerry Brotton's book dips into maps spanning millenia of human experience, from Ptolemy's Geography (circa 150 AD) all the way up to Google Earth, the dynamic, increasingly omnipresent Internet Age way that we answer the age-old question "Where am I?" …Along the way, he finds some marvelous things.”
—Christian Science Monitor

From the Publisher

★ 09/02/2013
In an era when Google Maps is regarded as a standard convenience, this history of 12 epoch-defining maps—including Google’s—is a revelation. Renaissance scholar Brotton examines a cross-cultural sampling of historic world maps, exploring them as representations of both the Earth, and of the philosophical mores of the cultures that produced them. The maps range in function from the “practical maintenance of empire” to the spiritual concerns of uniting “the earth and the heavens in a harmonious, universal whole.” Each simultaneously represents a geographical survey, an aesthetic achievement, technological progress, theological instruction, and political demarcation. These multiple functions are mirrored in the structure of the book, which reflects political, philosophical, and cultural development. The maps are about humanity’s changing relationship with itself, others, the Earth, and the heavens, and this broad scope makes for rich reading. Ultimately, the unifying function of each map is to “rise above the earth” and see with a “divine perspective,” and Brotton offers an excellent guide to understanding these influential attempts at psychogeographical transcendence. Of course, each historic map, despite the cartographer’s efforts, contained inaccuracies, necessitating revisions—a humbling lesson for our current information-dense age. Maps. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

12/01/2013
Brotton (Renaissance studies, Queen Mary Univ. of London; The Sale of the Late King's Goods: Charles I & His Art Collection) has produced an exhaustively researched historical study of world maps as a direct reflection of the geopolitical, cultural, and religious consciousness of their particular time and context. The 12 examples chosen span centuries and cultures, from Ptolemy's second-century study to 2012's Google Earth. One particularly noteworthy chapter, "Exchange," provides an account of al-Idrisi's world map (1154). This cartographer, a Muslim commissioned by Christian King Roger II of Sicily, brought to his work both Latin and Arabic geographical knowledge. Brotton demonstrates how choice of perspective and projection can deliberately enhance or diminish terrestrial regions. North is at the top of our own maps, but early Christian maps used East, while early Islamic maps favored South. At the center could be Jerusalem, Mecca, Europe, or your home address via Google Earth. Richly illustrated with 52 period maps reproduced in full color from collections around the world. VERDICT This fascinating study will raise map consciousness and offer new cartographic insights. Although scholarly in tone, it is highly recommended for all map enthusiasts and anyone with an interest in historiography.—Edward K. Werner, St. Lucie Cty. Lib. Syst., Ft. Pierce, FL

Library Journal

2013-09-25
A deeply erudite work of epistemology tracking how the making of maps throughout the ages reveals mankind's mastery of the universe. In this wide-ranging work, English scholar Brotton (Renaissance Studies/Queen Mary Univ.; The Sale of the Late King's Goods: Charles I and His Art Collection, 2006, etc.) moves from Ptolemy's Geography (A.D. second century) to Google Earth for an eclectic representation of the power of maps to confer man's authority and dominion. Maps tell us what we know about ourselves in relation to the world but also what we want the viewer to know, drawing on shifting perception, orientation and direction throughout the ages as science, faith and egocentrism deepened. For example, most of these 12 maps spotlight the culture from which the mapmaker drew, and until the later Christian era, maps were "oriented" by the south rather than north. Brotton divides his work into discrete themes such as science, faith, money and equality, selecting the map that best represents that particular idea at some moment in history. For example, Geography encapsulated more than 1,000 years of Greek thinking on the world "as a single and continuous entity" and was used as a model for the next two millennia. Muhammad al-Idrisi's Entertainment (A.D. 1154) reveals the enormously rich exchange of ideas between the Muslim East and Christian West. The bishop of Hereford's Mappamundi (1300) depicts fanciful theological events both classical and biblical, with Jerusalem at its center. Gerard Mercator's World Map (1569) shows how the extraordinary mapmaker circumscribed the persecution of his Protestant faith by rendering a vast map for navigation using a combination of cosmographical tradition and new scientific understanding. Brotton explores the ideology behind each mapmaker and the compelling "emotional forces" that he reveals about our civilization. A dense and scholarly but rewarding journey for the intellectually intrepid.

Kirkus Reviews