Herman Moll’s The World Described (1720): Mapping Britain’s Global and Imperial Interests

Abstract

ABSTRACTHerman Moll’s The World Described (1720), the pre-eminent folio atlas of Hanoverian Britain, departs from the usual Ortelian model in the selection and ordering of its contents. It placed Britain at the centre of the atlas so that the first half provided a cartographic description of Britain’s overseas commercial interests, while the second half showed the kingdom’s political interests on the Continent. The argument presented here is that Moll gave priority to global rather than imperial dimensions in helping his British readers appreciate the multifarious geography of their country’s interests.