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The New Nature of Maps

Essays in the History of Cartography

J. B. Harley
edited by Paul Laxton
introductory essay by J. H. Andrews
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In this collection of essays J. B. Harley (1932-1991) draws on ideas in art history, literature, philosophy, and the study of visual culture to subvert the traditional, "positivist" model of cartography, replacing it with one that is grounded in an iconological and semiotic theory of the nature of maps. He defines a map as a "social construction" and argues that maps are not simple representations of reality but exert profound influences upon the way space is conceptualized and organized. A central theme is the way in which power—whether military, political, religious, or economic—becomes...

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In this collection of essays J. B. Harley (1932-1991) draws on ideas in art history, literature, philosophy, and the study of visual culture to subvert the traditional, "positivist" model of cartography, replacing it with one that is grounded in an iconological and semiotic theory of the nature of maps. He defines a map as a "social construction" and argues that maps are not simple representations of reality but exert profound influences upon the way space is conceptualized and organized. A central theme is the way in which power—whether military, political, religious, or economic—becomes inscribed on the land through cartography. In this new reading of maps and map making, Harley undertakes a surprising journey into the nature of the social and political unconscious.

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Reviews

The father of critical cartography, and therefore the idea that a map should be understood as more than just a set of directions, was J. B. Harley...The New Nature of Maps... display[s] great erudition.

— Nicholas Lemann, New Yorker

Harley was an iconoclast, subverting traditional approaches to map-making by drawing together art history, literature, philosophy and visual culture. It's a view that can now be savored in his collected essays, The New Nature of Maps.

— Nick Saunders, New Scientist

With supreme tact, sympathetic insight into Harley's personality and his own deft scholarship, Laxton has produced... a book worthy of Harley.

— Catherine Delano-Smith, Nature

Inlcuding Andrew's introduction... we have a debate within the volume, not only postmodernism and its critique, but also other examples of Harley's anit-positivist and anti-Eurocentric approach alongside a potent understanding of the processes and problems of map making.

— Jeremy Black, Imago Mundi

The 'new nature' of maps reflects the sea change in the discipline of the history of cartography that has occurred, to a remarkable degree instigated by Brian Harley.

— John Cloud, Technology and Culture
About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
352
ISBN
9780801870903
DOI
Illustration Description
36 b&w illus.
Subject
Table of Contents

Introduction: Meaning, Knowledge, and Power in the Map Philosophy of J.B. Harley, by J. H. Andrews
1. Text and Contexts in the Interpretation of Early Maps
2. Maps, Knowledge, and Power
3. Silences and

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Introduction: Meaning, Knowledge, and Power in the Map Philosophy of J.B. Harley, by J. H. Andrews
1. Text and Contexts in the Interpretation of Early Maps
2. Maps, Knowledge, and Power
3. Silences and Secrecy: The Hidden Agenda of Cartography in Early Modern Europe
4. Power and Legitimation in the English Geographical Atlases of the Eighteenth Century
5. Deconstructing the Map
6. New England Cartography and the Native Americans
7. Can There Be a Cartographic Ethics

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Author Bios
Featured Contributor

J. B. Harley

J. B. Harley lectured in historical geography at the Universities of Liverpool and Exeter before moving to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His ideas on the meaning of maps have influenced not just geographers and map historians but also students of art history and literature. At Milwaukee he began, with David Woodward, the multivolume History of Cartography, the first volume of which was...
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Featured Contributor

Paul Laxton

Paul Laxton lectured in the Department of Geography at the University of Liverpool for more than thirty years. He is now an independent scholar.
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Featured Contributor

J. H. Andrews

J. H. Andrews is a retired professor of geography at Trinity College, Dublin and author of A Paper Landscape: The Ordnance Survey in Nineteenth-Century Ireland and Shapes of Ireland.
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