Maps and History: Constructing Images of the Past

by Jeremy Black

Historical atlases offer an understanding of the past that is invaluable to historians, not only because they convey a previous age's sense of space and distance but also because they reveal what historians and educators of those periods thought important to include or omit. This book―the first comprehensive and wide-ranging account of the historical atlas―explores the role, development, and nature of this important reference and discusses its impact on the presentation of the past.

Jeremy Black begins with a consideration of the "pre-history" of the historical individual maps depicting the Holy Land at the time of Christ and maps of the classical world. He then examines the first known historical atlas, the Parergon of Abraham Ortel, which was published in Antwerp in 1579 and was followed by other works that mapped the world of the Bible and the classics. In the eighteenth century, there was a growing interest in mapping the post-Classical world, and works appeared that included maps of medieval Europe. In the nineteenth century, historical maps came increasingly to embody a clear political emphasis, mapping blocs of territory separated by clear linear frontiers and reflecting an approach to the past focused on undivided sovereignty and the development of the nation-state.

In the twentieth century, historical atlases have both contributed to and responded to other ideologies, portraying peoples, languages, and cultural differences in an immediate and often striking visual form. Since 1945 the range of atlases has broadened to include maps devoted to the global environment, health, population trends, and other sociological, cultural, and economic changes. And the "liberation" of the Third World and the ending of the Cold War have stimulated a full scale re-mapping of the globe and the way it is perceived.

Genres: History, Cartography, Geography, Maps, Nonfiction

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Jeremy Black is an English historian, who was formerly a professor of history at the University of Exeter. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of America and the West at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US.
Black is the author of over 180 books, principally but not exclusively on 18th-century British politics and international relations, and has been described by one commentator as "the most prolific historical scholar of our age". He has published on military and political history, including Warfare in the Western World, 1882–1975 (2001) and The World in the Twentieth Century (2002).

Reviews

[Raymond Li · Rating 4 out of 5]

The "language" of maps is lines and shapes, which have been part of the historical narrative since ancient times. But maps are not only mechanical tools that reflect geography and history; they are also constructive forces that can drive political and social progress. The production process of map knowledge is the will of the modern territorial state, and is essentially a political-cultural and ideological production process. It connects the physical space and the apparent space, linking the concept of "home and country" and implanting it in the people's minds, thus trying to promote the integration of the national sense of territorial belonging and national identity.

[Mark Singer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A map is not just a map. It can be used to put forward nationalist, historical, political and cultural claims, and often what is not shown is just as important as what is shown. I have always liked looking at old maps and historical atlases, and this book has challenged my perspective on how geography is presented.

[Jesus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book neatly travels through the time via the maps of space humans have constructed.