Trading Territories: Mapping the Early Modern World 2nd Edition
Author(s): Jerry Brotton (Author)
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Publication Date: January 15, 2019
Edition: 2nd
Language: English
Print length: 208 pages
ISBN-10: 1780239297
ISBN-13: 9781780239293
Book Description
Trading Territories tells the compelling story of maps and geographical knowledge in the early modern world from the fifteenth to the early seventeenth century. Examining how European geographers mapped the territories of the Old World—Africa and Southeast Asia—this book shows how the historical preoccupation with Columbus’s “discovery” of the New World of America in 1492 obscured the ongoing importance of mapping territories that have since been defined as “Eastern,” especially those in the Muslim world.
In this book, now available in its second edition and updated with a new preface by the author, Jerry Brotton shows that trade and diplomacy defined the development of maps and globes in this period, far more than the disinterested pursuit of scientific accuracy and objectivity, and challenges our preconceptions about not just maps, but also the history and geography of what we call East and West.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Brotton’s Trading Territories is a history not just of how the first truly global maps were made but how they were conceptualized, and how they shaped as well as described the earlymodern world. . . . Trading Territories covers a wide sweep of shifting territory with verve and authority.” ― Geographical Magazine
“A beautifully illustrated account of the status, construction and purposes of maps in the early modern world.” ―
History Today, on the first edition
“Brotton’s elegant
Trading Territories shows how historically maps were about facilitating trade and celebrating (and exerting) influence.” ― Independent, on the first edition
“In this outstanding study of maps and mapping, Brotton reveals a dynamism in the transaction between East and West beyond anything we have previously appreciated.” — Lisa Jardine, on the first edition
About the Author
Jerry Brotton is professor of Renaissance studies at Queen Mary University of London and a leading expert in the history of cartography. He presented the BBC4 series Maps: Power, Plunder and Possession in 2010, and is the author of numerous critically acclaimed books, including Global Interests: Renaissance Art between East and West, cowritten with Lisa Jardine, and the best-selling and prize-winning A History of the World in Twelve Maps.
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