Mapping, Connectivity, and the Making of European Empires

Reviews / Votes

This impressive collection of essays offers an important and timely contribution to the study of mapping, empires, and the politics of space, with the novel addition of an explicit focus on connectivity. Particularly useful is the interdisciplinary nature of the volume, given that these issues undoubtedly cross-and bring into question-disciplinary boundaries. -- Jordan Branch, Assistant Professor of Government, Claremont McKenna College This fascinating follow up to Imaginaries of Connectivity offers an extraordinarily productive focus for further investigation of the problem of connectivity. Focusing on how, by strategically combining disparate elements, various mapping practices contributed to the creation of imperial spaces, Mapping, Connectivity and the Making of European Empires illuminates the role of maps as instruments of power, the complicated relationship between mapping and empire, and how the connectivities that maps depict both reflected European imperial ambitions and provided scaffolding for European imperial rule. -- Sandra Halperin, Professor Emerita, Department of Politics, International Relations, and Philosophy, Royal Holloway, University of London Drawing on a range of cases from the 16th through to the 20th centuries, the contributors remind us that a map is not merely a reflection of power; a map is power. Each chapter reveals how, by constructing the 'other' within a system of order, relative difference, connectivity, and circulation, mapping is fundamental to the logic of empire. -- Philip Steinberg, Durham University, Professor of Political Geography at Durham University