The History of Cartography, Volume 4 : Cartography in the European Enlightenment

Since its launch in 1987, the __History of Cartography__ series has garnered critical acclaim and sparked a new generation of interdisciplinary scholarship. __Cartography in the European Enlightenment__, the highly anticipated fourth volume, offers a comprehensive overview of the cartographic practices of Europeans, Russians, and the Ottomans, both at home and in overseas territories, from 1650 to 1800. The social and intellectual changes that swept Enlightenment Europe also transformed many of its mapmaking practices. A new emphasis on geometric principles gave rise to improved tools for measuring and mapping the world, even as large-scale cartographic projects became possible under the aegis of powerful states. Yet older mapping practices persisted: Enlightenment cartography encompassed a wide variety of processes for making, circulating, and using maps of different types. The volume’s more than four hundred encyclopedic articles explore the era’s mapping, covering topics both detailed—such as geodetic surveying, thematic mapping, and map collecting—and broad, such as women and cartography, cartography and the economy, and the art and design of maps. Copious bibliographical references and nearly one thousand full-color illustrations complement the detailed entries. "Between 1650 and 1800, the social and intellectual changes that were sweeping Europe also transformed its mapmaking practices. Throughout the nations on the continent as well as their overseas territories, a new emphasis on geometrical principles gave rise to improved tools for measurement and mapping of the world, even as the rising power of the state enabled large-scale mapping and surveying projects. As illustrated in this comprehensive history, however, cartography encompasses a wide variety of processes for making, circulating, and using maps of different types, and the developments of the Enlightenment era affected these processes in different ways, depending on the type of map and the context of its production. The volume's 489 encyclopedia-style articles, contributed by an international cast of 207 scholars and experts, range from short biographical sketches of key individuals to multipart entries on such broad topics as "Geodetic Surveying," "Thematic Mapping," and "Map Collecting." Each entry includes bibliographical references, and the volume is illustrated with 954 images, all printed in full color"-- Provided by publisher