Who thought
a book about cartography could be so captivating? Based on an exhibition by the
National Library of Australia, this fascinating book reveals the history of
man’s conception of the world.
Showing how
cultures perceived their world, the volume starts with the earliest extant map
from the Babylonians and progresses through to early maps of Australia.
Beautifully reproduced are the maps from these many ages, from the
geometrically divided world of the ancients, to the medieval mappaemundi that combined the physical
and temporal history of the world, through the mercantile maps of the age of
exploration, leading to the early sketches of the Australian continent.
The
interest goes further than the physical with the story of how people
perceived themselves in their world, their conceptions of time and space, other
lands and people. It reveals the peculiarities
of these ideas (like the belief that the southern continents
were not inhabited by decedents of Noah and therefore not human) as well as expelling our
myths of the past (the ancients knew the earth was spherical and
not flat). As the maps grow more familiar and detailed, so
declines the strangeness of these conceptions of the cultures that produced
them. What remains is the intrigue of these notions and the people who
conceived them.
Mapping our
World proves that cartography is more than just geography. It is culture,
belief, humanity.
Andreas
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