The History of Cartography. Vol. 1: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean ed. by J. B. Harley, David Woodward

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 551 inventory, produced with others, Catalogue des cartes nautiques sur vélin conservées au Département de Cartes et Plans, was published in 1963. After his retirement he devoted his time entirely to the history of cartog­ raphy and instrumentation. In his first article, reproduced in this volume, Destombes proved with solid argument that the world chart of 1519 of Lopo Homen was part of the anonymous Portuguese manuscript atlas, called the Miller Atlas, purchased in 1897 by the Bibliothèque Nationale. The articles are reproduced in the variety of type fonts of the periodicals in which they appeared. Although they are listed chrono­ logically at the beginning of the volume, there is neither a paged table of contents nor an index, making reader access extremely difficult. Nor are the titles always at the headings of the pages. Nevertheless, the reader will be rewarded by the variety and importance of the information contained in these articles. Silvio A. Bedini The History ofCartography. Vol. 1: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean. Edited by J. B. Harley and David Woodward. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. Pp. xxi + 599; illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, index. $100.00. This is the first of five volumes planned on the history of cartog­ raphy (four on cartography in the West, one on Asia) with the announced intent of helping to define a discipline. The editors’ general introduction is an overview of the history of the discipline and a methodological statement of how it ought to proceed. The individ­ ual chapters are detailed, well-thought-out summaries of specific topics, supported by extensive and detailed bibliographies that in turn are critically discussed. These are more than review articles, however. The chapters present new material and indicate specific paths for future research. Appendixes summarize the current state of knowl­ edge on the dates of maps and their makers and critically discuss technical methods of interpretation. In every respect, this work succeeds in its intent: anyone wanting to learn about the history of cartography should start with this series. The study is broadly at the intersection of three disciplines: the histories of geography, of science, and of technology. For a historian of science, the cast of characters is remarkably familiar, including Aristotle, Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, Pliny, and Ptolemy. Celestial and terrestrial mapping are both considered. Concerns of the history of technology find full expression as well, in discussions of the technical uses to which maps were put, the techniques of their production, and the manner in which these visual tools comple­ mented the written word. This interaction with the history of 552 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE technology is especially close in the section on medieval nautical maps, where artifacts and not just their descriptions are much more prevalent, and where these clearly had a practical use aside from the symbolic and the aesthetic. The volume shows strong editorial intervention, perhaps stronger than one would expect. Besides having the first and last words, the editors, J. B. Harley and David Woodward, prepared the eighth through tenth chapters from material supplied by Germaine Aujac; added material to chapters 11 and 15, written by O. A. W. Dilke; and Woodward wrote chapter 18 as his own specialist contribution. This gives the work a more uniform style and outlook than is usually found in similar multiauthor efforts. The book design is fantastically good. Abundant pictures, figures, and tables are placed in the text, the designer has ensured that the visual material and the explanatory text are close by one another, forty beautiful color plates complement the study, and the large format and impressive binding give the work a formidable stature. The book has been exquisitely edited. Editors and press are to be congratulated on their painstaking care. Harley and Woodward strive for a broad social interpretation ofmaps, both contextual and antipositivist. They propose to make the study of maps one of the humanistic disciplines, to look for multiple causes and purposes in the production, use, and evaluation ofmaps, and to abandon any scheme that tries to rank maps by their accuracy in modern-day terms. Social-cultural interpretation has been a workable goal...