A Short History Of The Cartography Of Africa

Drawing on the recent work of historians of Africa, this volume questions the contemporary wisdom about maps of Africa. This book suggests that the history of African cartography has been misinterpreted.

This illustrated work is intended to acquaint readers with the early maps produced in both Europe and the rest of the world, and to tell us something of their development, their makers and printers, their varieties and characteristics. The authors' chief concern is with the appearance of maps: they exclude any examination of their content, or of scientific methods of mapmaking. This book ends in the second half of the eighteenth century, when craftsmanship was superseded by specialized science and the machine. 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's History of Cartography marks the reappearance of this seminal work after a hiatus of nearly a half century. As a reprint project undertaken many years after the book last appeared, finding suitable materials to work from proved to be no easy task. Because of the wealth of monochrome and color plates, the book could only be properly reproduced using the original materials. Ultimately the authors were able to obtain materials from the original printer Scotchprints or contact films made directly from original plates, thus allowing the work to preserve the beauty and clarity of the illustrations. Old maps, collated with other materials, help us to elucidate the course of human history. It was not until the eighteenth century, however, that maps were gradually stripped of their artistic decoration and transformed into plain, specialist sources of information based upon measurement. Maps are objects of historical, artistic, and cultural significance, and thus collecting them seems to need no justification, simply enjoyment.

An illustrated history of maps and mapmaking, including reproductions of 200 antique maps.

This volume comprises the proceedings of the 2010 International Symposium of the ICA Commission on the History of Cartography. The nineteen papers reflect the research interests of the Commission which span the period from the Enlightenment to the evolution of Geographical Information Science. Apart from studies on general cartography, the volume, which reflects some co-operation with the ICA Commission on Maps and Society and the United States Geological Survey (USGS), contains regional studies on cartographic endeavours in Northern America, Brazil, and Southern Africa. The ICA Commission on Maps and Society participated as its field of study often overlaps with that of the ICA Commission on the History of Cartography. The USGS which is the official USA mapping organisation, was invited to emphasise that the ICA Commission on the History of Cartography is not only interested in historical maps, but also has as mandate the research and document the history of Geographical Information Science. The ICA Commission on Maps and Society participated as its field of study often overlaps with that of the ICA Commission on the History of Cartography. The USGS which is the official USA mapping organisation, was invited to emphasise that the ICA Commission on the History of Cartography is not only interested in historical maps, but also has as mandate the research and document the history of Geographical Information Science.

Borno (in northeast Nigeria) is notorious today as the home of an Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram, whose insurgency is a major security threat, but it was once the heartland of the Kanuri-speaking royal empire of Kanem-Borno, renowned throughout Africa and beyond, which in its later incarnation, the Bornu Empire, lasted from 1380 to 1893. This book offers the reader the first modern history of Borno, drawing upon sources in London, Berlin, Paris, Kaduna and Maiduguri and recently released 'migrated archives'. As its longevity suggests, what is particularly remarkable about Borno is the permanence of its boundaries-its territorial integrity-which dates back centuries, and the political and social identities that such borders framed in the minds of its inhabitants.