History of Cartography

by Bagrow,Leo

• ISBN13: 9781412811545
• ISBN10: 1412811546
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2009-12-15
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This illustrated work is intended to acquaint readers withthe early maps produced in both Europe and the rest ofthe world, and to tell us something of their development,their makers and printers, their varieties and characteristics.The authors’ chief concern is with the appearanceof maps: they exclude any examination of their content,or of scientific methods of mapmaking. This book endsin the second half of the eighteenth century, when craftsmanshipwas superseded by specialized science and themachine. As a history of the evolution of the early map,it is a stunning work of art and science.This expanded second edition of Bagrow and Skelton’sHistory of Cartography marks the reappearance of this seminalwork after a hiatus of nearly a half century. As a reprintproject undertaken many years after the book last appeared,finding suitable materials to work from proved to be noeasy task. Because of the wealth of monochrome and colorplates, the book could only be properly reproduced using theoriginal materials. Ultimately the authors were able to obtainmaterials from the original printer Scotchprints or contactfilms made directly from original plates, thus allowing thework to preserve the beauty and clarity of the illustrations.Old maps, collated with other materials, help us toelucidate the course of human history. It was not untilthe eighteenth century, however, that maps were graduallystripped of their artistic decoration and transformedinto plain, specialist sources of information based uponmeasurement. Maps are objects of historical, artistic, andcultural significance, and thus collecting them seems toneed no justification, simply enjoyment.