After the Map
After the Map

Author: William Rankin

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2016-07-01

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 022633953X

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For most of the twentieth century, maps were indispensable. They were how governments understood, managed, and defended their territory, and during the two world wars they were produced by the hundreds of millions. Cartographers and journalists predicted the dawning of a “map-minded age,” where increasingly state-of-the-art maps would become everyday tools. By the century’s end, however, there had been decisive shift in mapping practices, as the dominant methods of land surveying and print publication were increasingly displaced by electronic navigation systems. In After the Map, William Rankin argues that although this shift did not render traditional maps obsolete, it did radically change our experience of geographic knowledge, from the God’s-eye view of the map to the embedded subjectivity of GPS. Likewise, older concerns with geographic truth and objectivity have been upstaged by a new emphasis on simplicity, reliability, and convenience. After the Map shows how this change in geographic perspective is ultimately a transformation of the nature of territory, both social and political.

Geographies of Knowledge
Geographies of Knowledge

Author: Robert J. Mayhew

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2020-08-18

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1421438550

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A path-breaking exploration of how space, place, and scale influenced the production and circulation of scientific knowledge in the nineteenth century. Over the past twenty years, scholars have increasingly questioned not just historical presumptions about the putative rise of modern science during the long nineteenth century but also the geographical contexts for and variability of science during the era. In Geographies of Knowledge, an internationally distinguished array of historians and geographers examine the spatialization of science in the period, tracing the ways in which scale and space are crucial to understanding the production, dissemination, and reception of scientific knowledge in the nineteenth century. Engaging with and extending the influential work of David Livingstone and others on science's spatial dimensions, the book touches on themes of empire, gender, religion, Darwinism, and much more. In exploring the practice of science across four continents, these essays illuminate the importance of geographical perspectives to the study of science and knowledge, and how these ideas made and contested locally could travel the globe. Dealing with everything from the local spaces of the Surrey countryside to the global negotiations that proposed a single prime meridian, from imperial knowledge creation and exploration in Burma, India, and Africa to studies of metropolitan scientific-cum-theological tussles in Belfast and in Confederate America, Geographies of Knowledge outlines an interdisciplinary agenda for the study of science as geographically situated sets of practices in the era of its modern disciplinary construction. More than that, it outlines new possibilities for all those interested in knowledge's spatial characteristics in other periods. Contributors: John A. Agnew, Vinita Damodaran, Diarmid A. Finnegan, Nuala C. Johnson, Dane Kennedy, Robert J. Mayhew, Mark Noll, Ronald L. Numbers, Nicolaas Rupke, Yvonne Sherratt, Charles W. J. Withers

Pilgrims on the Ice
Pilgrims on the Ice

Author:

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2008-05-01

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9780803216396

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Robert Falcon Scott?s 1901?4 expedition to the Antarctic was a landmark event in the history of Antarctic exploration, creating a sensation comparable to the Arctic efforts of the American Robert E. Peary. Scott?s initial expedition was also the first step toward the dramatic race to the South Pole in 1912, which resulted in the tragic deaths of Scott and his companions. Since then Scott?s reputation has vacillated between two extremes: Was he a martyred hero, the beau ideal of a brave and selfless explorer, or a bumbling fool whose mistakes killed him and his entire party?øPilgrims on the Ice goes beyond the personality of Scott to remove the first expedition from the shadow of the second, to study objectively its purpose, its composition, and its real accomplishments. This Bison Books edition includes a new preface by the author.

The Earthquake Observers
The Earthquake Observers

Author: Deborah R. Coen

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 0226111814

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Earthquakes have taught us much about our planet's hidden structure and the forces that have shaped it. This book explains how observing networks transformed an instant of panic and confusion into a field for scientific research, turning earthquakes into natural experiments at the nexus of the physical and human sciences.

An Empire of Ice
An Empire of Ice

Author: Edward J. Larson

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2011-05-31

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 0300154089

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Examines the pioneering Antarctic expeditions of the early twentieth century within the context of a larger scientific, social, and geopolitical context.