A River of Many Names: Mapping the Early Modern Amazon

The concept of the Amazon River as we know it today emerged in the middle of the seventeenth century, when maps and accounts focused exclusively on the river began to circulate following a series of Iberian expeditions in the late 1630s. Before that, the Amazon already existed, but under dissimilar outlines and names: “Mar Dulce,” “Río Grande,” “Marañón,” “Orellana,” and eventually “Amazon.” Offering the first comprehensive geographic and cartographic history of the early modern Amazon Rive...