The Mapmaker's Quest: Depicting New Worlds in Renaissance Europe (review)

Why should a book on the history of cartography which does not treat the technological aspects of mapmaking be of interest to readers of Technology and Culture? This question highlights a problem in the historical literature. The technological aspects of cartography in the early modern era have not been the subject of recent research, even though many of the parameters and paradigms for understanding the development of maps and their uses have shifted significantly. Pending the future publication of the third and fourth volumes of The History of Cartography, edited by David Woodward, this book by David Buisseret will provide the nonspecialist with an accessible overview of the main trends from the early Renaissance to the Enlightenment.

Generalists in the history of technology are unlikely to be familiar with this critical period in the history of cartography, critical not only for that field but also for the larger story of how Europeans came to describe, understand, and exploit nature in order to strengthen the state and generate wealth. Anyone interested in the more technical side of cartography but unfamiliar with the main outlines of the topic for this five-century span can follow Buisseret from the Mediterranean to the North Sea and across the Atlantic as Europeans mapped not only the lands where they lived but the world.

The history of cartography between the Middle Ages and the industrial era was conventionally divided by the introduction of printing, on the one hand, and the introduction of scientific fieldwork and instrumentation, on the other. Both changed the terms of reference concerning an objective representation of reality in graphic form. The shift toward greater objectivity therefore provided the paradigm for a historical narrative and established criteria against which individual maps could be assessed. This approach remained dominant until the 1980s, when a new critical perspective was introduced by Brian Harvey and others who valorized maps which did not fit comfortably into a linear, progressive model based on the pursuit of accuracy and objectivity. Their work instead emphasized the importance of cultural and subjective elements, which tended to contextualize any given map and called attention to the diverse uses of maps, including their use as instruments of ideology. The content of the history of cartography has therefore changed less than the way it is interpreted. The literature on older maps a generation ago contained more information on geodesy and engraving, for example, than would be the case today.

Military mapping, overseas expansion, and the transformation of cities and the countryside form the three main blocks that allow Buisseret to discuss different kinds of mapped images in Germany, England, Spain, France, Italy, and the Low Countries, for styles did vary. Because his focus is on the changing consciousness of space, which gave elites, explorers, engineers, and merchants greater cause to make and use maps, his book raises a fundamental question about the relation between technical change and mental constructs. Did the limitations of technique hold back advances in the graphic representation of space and the conceptualization of its economic and political potential? And how did advances in cartography help Europeans gain greater mastery over their environment? Buisseret may not provide much insight into the answers, but his sensitive and well-written text leaves the reader in no doubt about the importance of the questions.