The Oxford Map Companion: One Hundred Sources in World History

by Patricia Seed

Overview

Bringing together a rich and diverse collection of 100 historical maps from the Paleolithic to the present, The Oxford Map Companion: One Hundred Sources in World History illustrates how peoples and cultures throughout the human past have imagined their worlds. The collection—which includes many never-before published maps—spans a broad spectrum of human time and cultural diversity. It also features a wide range of map types from every continent, including stick charts, porcelain maps, maps created on sealskin, celestial maps, powder-horn and buckskin maps, silk "escape maps," radio maps, ordnance surveys, subway maps, and maps of the Internet.

Combining cutting-edge scholarship and accessibility, renowned scholar and award-wining author Patricia Seed presents new and innovative ways of looking at maps. Organized both chronologically and cartographically, nearly every historical map is accompanied by a locator map and/or schematic diagram—personally crafted by the author—that helps the reader to see the map in its geographical context and to grasp the meaning of its symbols, labels, and overall layout. A master chronology of world history in the front of the book and timelines at the beginning of each Part set the history of mapping in a global framework. Finally, every map includes a corresponding QR code that will allow readers to instantly explore a Google Earth outline of the area covered in the historical map on their smartphones.

Visit the companion website at http://www.mapcompanion.org/.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199765638
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	08/13/2013
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Patricia Seed is Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of several books including American Pentimento: The Pursuit of Riches and the Invention of "Indians" (2001) and Ceremonies of Possession in Europe's Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640 (1995). In recent years, Seed has been intensively involved in research on old and new questions in cartography. She bring her skills in the use of digital imaging technologies (GIS and graphic design software) to the study—not only to reformulate the questions of the history of map making—but to offer historical and comparative scholarship new tools of analysis and new ways of representing the knowledge that it produces.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Introduction
How this Book Works
Timeline of World History

Part One: Mapping the Skies: Prehistory - 1515 CE

1. Lascaux, France: Pleiades, c. 17,000 BCE
2. Polynesian Constellations, 300 BCE-1400 CE
3. African Star Lore
4. The Emu, Australia
5. The Origin of the Zodiac, Ancient Mesopotamia: 1130 BCE
6. Greek Constellations and Arabic Stars: The Almagest (150 CE) and Arabic Star Lists (1065 CE)
7. First Maps of the Greek Constellations, Persia, 964 CE
8. The Hebrew Zodiac, 1390 CE
9. Dunhuang Star Map (Tang Dynasty), 618-907 CE
10. Chinese Constellations (Song Dynasty), 1193 CE
11. From Sky to Land: Directions in China, 3000 BCE - Present
12. Albrecht Durer, Map of the Constellations, 1515 CE

Part Two: Roads, Rivers, and Routes: 3000 BCE to 1300 CE

13. Ancient Mesopotamia: The Town of Nippur, c. 2300 BCE
14. Map of the Route to Paradise, Egypt, 2055-1650 BCE
15. Road Map to the Egyptian Quarries, 1150 BCE
16. Rivers and Roads: The Oldest Map in China, c. 239 BCE
17. Rome Mapped in Marble: The Severan Marbles, 203-211 CE
18. All Roads Lead To Rome: The Peutinger Table, c. 300 CE
19. River Maps: The Indus River, c. 1065 CE
20. Cairo to Constantinople: A Nautical Route along the Mediterranean, c. 1065 CE
21. Crusader Jerusalem, c. 1100 CE
22. Gough Map of Britain: Rivers and Routes, 1375 CE

Part Three: Mapping the World 600 BCE - c. 1450 CE

23. Babylonian World Map, 600 BCE
24. Medieval Christian T-O Map, c. 600 CE
25. World Climate Map, c. Fifth Century CE
26. Medieval Islamic Map of the World, c. 1300 CE
27. First Map of Turkish Central Asia, 1072 CE
28. Hereford Mappa Mundi, 1300 CE
29. Idrisi's Circular Map of the World, 1165 CE
30. Earliest Known Ptolemaic Map of the World, c. 1300 CE
31. Fra Mauro's Map of the World, 1448-1459 CE
32. Buddhist World Map from Japan, 1710 CE
33. Jain World Map

Part Four: An Expanding World, 1300 CE - 1570 CE

34. Catalan World Map, 1375
35. Arabic Portolan, c. 1300
36. Chart of the Mediterranean, Western Europe, and Western Africa, 1506
37. Which Way Is North: An Introduction to the History of Directions in the West
38. Map of the Known World, by Martellus, c. 1490
39. First Map of America: The Cantino Map, 1502
40. Latitude and Longitude: The Keys to Expanding the World
41. Waldseemuller Map of the World
42. The Indian Ocean Mapped by Jorge Reinel
43. A Heart-Shaped Map
44. Magellan's Circumnavigation of the Globe, 1519-1522
45. Abraham Ortelius, The Atlas, 1570, Part A
46. Abraham Ortelius, The Atlas, 1570, Part B
47. Mercator's World Map, 1569

Part Five: Worlds Colliding, c. 1550 - c. 1800 CE

48. Native Towns of Spanish Mexico, 1570
49. Guaman Poma, Mappamundi as Satire, 1615
50. Northeast Coast of North America, 1607
51. East and Southeast Asia, 1625
52. Nagasaki Harbor, Japan, 1764
53. Tupaia's Map of Tahiti for Captain Cook, 1769
54. North American Buckskin Map, 1774-1775
55. Powder Horn Maps, 1750s-1780s
56. Slaves on the Gold Coast of Africa, 1729
57. The Niger River Described by a Fulani Ruler, 1824
58. The Cedid Atlas, 1803
59. Napoleon's Advance and Retreat from Moscow, 1812-1813

Part Six: Land Surveys, c. 800 - 1800 CE

60. Japan: The First Rice Field Surveys, Eighth Century CE
61. Chinese County Maps: Dinghai County, 1226 CE
62. Elizabethan Tapestry Map, 1580
63. The Land That Windmills Made: A Dutch Polder Map, 1712
64. Paris on the Eve of the French Revolution, 1789
65. Ordnance Survey Origins: Scotland's Loch Ness, 1747-1755
66. Thai Map, c. 1782
67. The Valley of Kashmir, 1836
68. South Joella Province, Korea, 1800s
69. Japan: Gyoki Map on a Porcelain Plate, c. 1830
70. Mongolian Land Survey, 1892

Part Seven: Mapping the Natural World, 1800 - 2000

71. Bali: Rivers and Temples, 1930
72. The Great Trigonometric Survey of India, 1802-1842
73. Alexander Humboldt's Map of Plants on Chimborazo, 1803
74. Geological Map of Southwestern England, 1815
75. 1851 Whale Chart
76. Monsoon and Trade Wind Chart of the Indian Ocean, 1864
77. Marshall Islands Stick Map, 1880s
78. Crown Price Islands in Disko Bay, Greenland, 1926
79. Luba Mapping Device, Congo, 1930s
80. The Modern Zodiac, 1933
81. Maps into Art: Aboriginal Map, 1989
82. Map of the Ocean Floor, 1977
83. Map of Antarctica, 2003
84. Coastal Flooding in West Africa: Mapping the Future

Part Eight: Empires, Wars, and Decolonization, 1884 - 1999

85. Cape to Cairo: The Scramble for Africa, 1884-1885
86. Territorial Claims in Central and Eastern Europe Prior to World War I
87. 1916 Trench Warfare Artillery Map, Flanders
88. Soviet Georgia, from the First Russian Atlas, 1937-1939
89. Japanese Aviation Map of Korea, 1933
90. Royal Air Force Map for Bombing Northern Germany, 1943
91. World War II Silk Escape Map
92. Post-War New World Map, 1942
93. Black Homeland Consolidation Proposals for South Africa, 1973
94. Peoples and Nations of the Soviet Union, 1991
95. Decolonization in Africa, 1960-1975

Part Nine: Mapping Transport and Communication Networks, 1884 - 2006
96. Brazilian Railway Map, 1884
97. French National Automobile Map, 1900
98. Harry Beck's 1933 Map of the London Underground
99. Landing on 27R: London's Heathrow Airport, 2006
100. Map of the Internet, 2003

Appendix: Google Earth and Google Maps

Glossary
Bibliography
Credits
Types of maps included in the volume
Locations for the maps in the volume
Index
Technical Note

Editorial Reviews

"Patricia Seed's Oxford Map Companion is a landmark achievement. Seed has produced a magisterial and concise yet authoritative account of mapmaking, explaining its centrality to our understanding of world history."—Jerry Brotton, Queen Mary University (London), author of A History of the World in Twelve Maps

"Superb pictures, expert commentaries, accessible language, and a breadth of knowledge few scholars can rival: Patricia Seed gives us an incomparable resource for studying and teaching the history of maps."—Felipe Fernández-Armesto, University of Notre Dame, author of Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration

"An eclectic and informative set of original maps, spanning the full scope of the global historical record. The reproductions are excellent and Seed's text is both edifying and entertaining. The Oxford Map Companion will be of keen interest both to map enthusiasts and to teachers and students of world history."—Martin Lewis, Stanford University, coauthor of The Myth of Continents

"Seed has produced a fascinating, diverse and thoughtful book, ideal as a teaching resource and an introduction to the breadth and chronological span of the globe's many cartographic traditions." —Times Higher Education

From the Publisher