A History of the World in Twelve Maps shows that cartography is a matter of perspective | The National
▻http://www.thenational.ae/a-history-of-the-world-in-twelve-maps-shows-that-cartography-is-a-matter
Ce livre a déjà été signalé sur seenthis, mais ici, une excellente recension de l’ouvrage (formidable) de Jerry Brotton.
Brotton perceptively argues that all of the maps that he surveys might thus be characterised as examples of “egocentric mapping”: each, Brotton writes, “is a timeless act of personal reassurance”, which invites us to “locat[e] ourselves as individuals in relation to a larger world that we suspect is supremely indifferent to our existences”. The perspective of the map “literally centres individuals”, but it also has the effect of “elevat[ing] them like gods, inviting them to take flight and look down upon the earth from a divine viewpoint, surveying the whole world in one look, calmly detached, gazing upon what can only be imagined by earthbound mortals”. As Brotton’s account of the lives of cartographers such as Gerard Mercator reveals, mapmaking was often a dangerous business: the power implicit in this elevated perspective was not lost on those ruling authorities who, throughout history, have sought to control and manipulate the mapmaker’s knowledge of geography.
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World maps are “egocentric” in another sense as well: “The overwhelming majority of maps,” Brotton writes, “put the culture that produced them at their centre.” Each map offers a view of the world, but each map also embodies a world view, an ideology that represents the beliefs and assumptions of the culture from which it springs. The 12 maps are presented chronologically, and the first three maps are seemingly chosen to give a sense not only of geographical diversity but also of ideological diversity.
