These diverse essays investigate political factors behind the rapid development of cartography in Renaissance Europe and its impact on emerging European nations. By 1500 a few rulers had already discovered that better knowledge of their lands would strengthen their control over them; by 1550, the cartographer's art had become an important instrument for bringing territories under the control of centralized government. Throughout the following century increasing governmental reliance on maps demanded greater accuracy and more sophisticated techniques. This volume, a detailed survey of the political uses of cartography between 1400 and 1700 in Europe, answers these questions: When did monarchs and ministers begin to perceive that maps could be useful in government? For what purposes were maps commissioned? How accurate and useful were they? How did cartographic knowledge strengthen the hand of government? By focusing on particular places and periods in early modern Europe, the chapters offer new insights into the growth of cartography as a science, the impetus behind these developments - often rulers attempting to expand their power - and the role of mapmaking in European history. The essay on Poland reveals that cartographic progress came only under the impetus of powerful rulers; another explores the French monarchy's role in the burst of scientific cartography that marked the opening of the "splendid century". Additional chapters discuss the profound influence of cartographic ideas on the English aristocracy during the sixteenth century, the relation of progress in mapmaking to imperialistic goals of the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs, and the supposed primacy of Italian mapmakingfollowing the Renaissance. Contributors to this volume are Peter Barber, David Buisseret, John Marino, Michael J. Mikos, Geoffrey Parker, and James Vann. These essays were originally presented as the Kenneth Nebenzahl, Jr., Lectures in the History of Cartography at the Newberry Library.

Editor's NoteIntroduction by David Buisseret1: Mapping the Chinese City: The Image and the Reality Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt2: Mapping the City: Ptolemy's Geography in the Renaissance Naomi Miller3: Urbs and Civitas in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Spain Richard L. Kagan4: Military Architecture and Cartography in the Design of the Early Modern City Martha Pollak5: Modeling Cities in Early Modern Europe David Buisseret6: The Plan of Chicago by Daniel H. Burnham and Edward H. Bennett: Cartographic and Historical Perspectives Gerald A. DanzerContributors Index Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

But these hand-drawn maps, often displaying elaborate cartouches and elegant coats of arms, served as far more than mere records of property ownership - they were treasured works of art, exhibited for pleasure and as symbols of wealth, and passed down from generation to generation.

A collection of illustrated essays on sovereignty and political power in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe.

Conventionally, ``absolutism'' in early-modern Europe has suggested unfettered autocracy and despotism -- the erosion of rights, the centralisation of decision-making, the loss of liberty. Everything, in a word, that was un-British but characteristic of ancien-regime France. Recently historians have questioned such comfortably simplistic views. This lively investigation of ``absolutism'' in action -- continent-wide but centred on a detailed comparison of France and England -- dissolves the traditional picture to reveal a much more complex reality; and in so doing illuminates the varied ways in which early-modern Europe was governed.

"The authors write authoritatively and crisply . . . . How to use maps in teaching is spelled out carefully, but the authors also manage to sketch in the background of American mapping so the book is both a manual and a history. Commentaries are sprinkled with stimulating new ideas, for instance on how to use bird's-eye views and country atlases in the classroom, and there are didactic discussions on maps showing the walking city and the impact of the street car. "An extraordinarily wide range of maps is depicted, which makes for good browsing, pondering and close study. . . . This is a very good, highly attractive, and worthwhile book; it will have great impact on the use of old (and new!) maps in teaching. As well, this is a tantalizing survey of mapping the United States and will whet the appetites of students and encourage them to learn more about maps and their origins."—John Warketin, Cartographica

Maps play an indispensable role in indigenous peoples? efforts to secure land rights in the Americas and beyond. Yet indigenous peoples did not invent participatory mapping techniques on their own; they appropriated them from techniques developed for colonial rule and counterinsurgency campaigns, and refined by anthropologists and geographers. Through a series of historical and contemporary examples from Nicaragua, Canada, and Mexico, this book explores the tension between military applications of participatory mapping and its use for political mobilization and advocacy. The authors analyze the emergence of indigenous territories as spaces defined by a collective way of life--and as a particular kind of battleground.

Great Britain and Ireland enjoy a rich cartographic heritage, yet historians have not made full use of early maps in their writings and research. This is partly due to a lack of information about exactly which maps are available. With the publication of this volume from the Royal Historical Society, we now have a comprehensive guide to the early maps of Great Britain. The book is divided into two parts: part one describes the history and purpose of maps in a series of short essays on the early mapping of the British Isles; part two comprises a guide to the collections, national and regional. Now available from Cambridge University Press, this volume provides an essential reference tool for anyone requiring to access maps of the British Isles dating back to the medieval period and beyond.

Renaissance map-makers produced ever more accurate descriptions of geography, which were also beautiful works of art. They filled the oceans Europeans were exploring with ships and to describe the real ships which were the newest and best products of technology. Above all the ships were there to show the European conquest of the seas of the world.