Comparative Map History and “The History of Cartography”: Methodologies, Institutions, and Idealizations (Leiden: Brill, 2025)

This is a historiography of the principal form of map history, as it emerged in the early nineteenth century. It’s all work I did for the first incarnation of what has become Maps: Concepts and Histories, but which I removed both for space and to ensure that that book is not too historiographic for the press. Some parts originally appeared in this blog, and I have now deleted them. (I have not included those blog posts in the summary Contributions [see Resources menu tab].)

Of particular interest is the exploration of the different methodologies of absolute and relative comparison, and the reconfiguration of “cartobibliography” — yet another term that hides significant complexity under its veneer of uniformity.

Abstract

What is commonly thought of as the centuries-old field of “the history of cartogra- phy” was invented after World War II through incomplete historiographies by Cornelis Koeman, Armando Cortesão, R. A. Skelton, and J. B. Harley. This monograph begins to replace those misleading historiographies with an empirically grounded analysis of the ways in which early maps have been systematically studied since the early 1800s. It offers innovative accounts of the practices and institutions of comparative map his- tory in support of Western imperialism and nationalism, and of the historiographical reconfiguration of comparative map history as the core of “the history of cartography.” Throughout, this monograph argues that “cartography,” “the history of cartography,” and “cartobibliography” are modern idealizations that obscure actual mapping and historiographical practices. All three terms need to be abandoned.

Contents

Introduction 1

1 Writing the History of Map History

1.1 Historiography, “Historical Cartography,” and “the History of Cartography”

1.2 Historiographical Modes of Map History

2 Methodologies and Threads of Comparative Map History

2.1 Absolute Comparison

2.2 Relative Comparison

2.2.1  Imperialistic and Nationalistic Motives for Comparative Map History

2.2.2  The Ethos of Comparative Map History

2.3 Relative Comparison and Bibliographical Enumeration and Listing

2.3.1 Enumeration

2.3.2 Listings

2.3.3 Reasoned Listings

2.3.4 Inclusive Listings

2.3.5 Deprecating “Cartobibliography”

3 Comparative Map Historians: Map Librarians, Antiquarians, and Academics

3.1 Early Map Collecting

3.2 The Antiquarian Trade in Early Maps

3.3 Early Maps in Institutional Libraries

3.3.1 National Map Libraries in France and Britain

3.3.2 An Historically Inflected Map Library in the USA

3.3.3 Letting Maps Become Early Maps

3.3.4 Map Libraries in the Twentieth Century

3.4 Comparative Map History in Academia

4 Inventing the Deficient Discipline of “the History of Cartography” 61

4.1  The History of Cartography as a Single Field of Study

4.1.1 Leo Bagrow and Imago Mundi

4.1.2 1964: Gerald Crone

4.2 Inventing a Deficient Discipline

4.2.1 1957–1961: Koeman and Dutch Bibliography

4.2.2 1962–1966: Cortesão and the Ghost of Santarém

4.2.3 1962–1966: Skelton’s Lectures

4.2.4 Skelton’s Hints for a New Intellectual Direction

4.3 The Idea of a Single Discipline Takes Hold

4.3.1 Internal Map History and the Study of Map Form

4.3.2 Form/Content and the Singular Nature of “Cartobibliography”

4.3.3 New Reference Resources for a New Discipline

5 Fixing the Conceptual Deficiencies of the History of Cartography

5.1 The Intellectual Poverty of the History of Cartography

5.2 To Fix the History of Cartography, Study the Use of Early Maps

5.2.1 Woodward’s Matrix of the History of Cartography

5.2.2 Harley and Map Use in the American Revolution

5.3 The History of Cartography and Harley’s Historiography

5.4 Deriding the Old to Promote the New

5.4.1 The Broader Academic Picture

Bibliography