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The Commerce of Cartography
Though the political and intellectual history of mapmaking in the eighteenth century is well established, the details of its commercial revolution have until now been widely scattered. In The Commerce of Cartography, Mary Pedley presents a vivid picture of the costs and profits of the mapmaking industry in England and France, and reveals how the economics of map trade affected the content and appearance of the maps themselves. Conceptualizing the relationship between economics and cartography, Pedley traces the process of mapmaking from compilation, production, and marketing to consumption, reception, and criticism. In detailing the rise of commercial cartography, Pedley explores qualitative issues of mapmaking as well. Why, for instance, did eighteenth-century ideals of aesthetics override the modern values of accuracy and detail? And what, to an eighteenth-century mind and eye, qualified as a good map? A thorough and engaging study of the business of cartography during the Enlightenment, The Commerce of Cartography charts a new cartographic landscape and will prove invaluable to scholars of economic history, historical geography, and the history of publishing.
The Politics of Utopia
"The Scottish economist John Law has been described as the architect of modern central banking. His "System," established in Regency France between 1716 and 1720, saw the founding of a bank issuing paper money and the establishment of commercial and colonial enterprises aimed at consolidating public debt. What at first seemed like financial wizardry, however, resulted in rampant speculation and economic collapse. In this book, Arnaud Orain offers a provocative rereading of this well-known episode. Starting in the seventeenth century, he reconstructs the figures and ideas, long predating Law, that anticipated and laid the groundwork for the System, which, he argues, is best understood as a failed social utopia aimed at the total transformation of society. Overturning familiar narratives of this seismic event, this book rewrites a stunning chapter in economic history, revealing new lessons for today's fraught financial landscape"--
When France was King of Cartography
Geographical works, as socially constructed texts, provide a rich source for historians and historians of science investigating patronage, the governmental initiatives and support for science, and the governmental involvement in early modern commerce. Over the course of nearly two centuries (1594-1789), in adopting and adapting maps as tools of statecraft, the Bourbon Dynasty both developed patron-client relations with mapmakers and corporations and created scientific institutions with fundamental geographical goals. Concurrently, France--particularly, Paris--emerged as the dominant center of map production. Individual producers tapped the traditional avenues of patronage, touted the authori...
Ecoscapes
This volume's concept, 'ecoscape, ' has been formed for the purpose of comprehending the spatial configuration (geography) of an ecosystem. Using this method, the contributors place emphasis not on things, but on the spatial patternings of relations and interrelations. Through the related notion of economy, conceptualized as the management of the ecoscape, contributors investigate ethical problems and value choices in light of the way that we are contextualized in the world. By envisioning specific environments as spatial processes of events composed of interrelated patternings, the co-editors intend to provide a fresh approach for framing the problems that beset our world
Explorations and Entanglements
Traditionally, Germany has been considered a minor player in Pacific history: its presence there was more limited than that of other European nations, and whereas its European rivals established themselves as imperial forces beginning in the early modern era, Germany did not seriously pursue colonialism until the nineteenth century. Yet thanks to recent advances in the field emphasizing transoceanic networks and cultural encounters, it is now possible to develop a more nuanced understanding of the history of Germans in the Pacific. The studies gathered here offer fascinating research into German missionary, commercial, scientific, and imperial activity against the backdrop of the Pacific’s overlapping cultural circuits and complex oceanic transits.
L'atelier Delisle
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Measuring the New World
Prior to 1735, South America was terra incognita to many Europeans. But that year, the Paris Academy of Sciences sent a mission to the Spanish American province of Quito (in present-day Ecuador) to study the curvature of the earth at the Equator. Equipped with quadrants and telescopes, the mission’s participants referred to the transfer of scientific knowledge from Europe to the Andes as a “sacred fire” passing mysteriously through European astronomical instruments to observers in South America.By taking an innovative interdisciplinary look at the traces of this expedition, Measuring the New World examines the transatlantic flow of knowledge from West to East. Through ephemeral monuments and geographical maps, this book explores how the social and cultural worlds of South America contributed to the production of European scientific knowledge during the Enlightenment. Neil Safier uses the notebooks of traveling philosophers, as well as specimens from the expedition, to place this particular scientific endeavor in the larger context of early modern print culture and the emerging intellectual category of scientist as author.
The Memoir of Lieutenant Dumont, 1715–1747
In 1719, Jean-Francois-Benjamin Dumont de Montigny, son of a Paris lawyer, set sail for Louisiana with a commission as a lieutenant after a year in Quebec. During his peregrinations over the next eighteen years, Dumont came to challenge corrupt officials, found himself in jail, eked out a living as a colonial subsistence farmer, survived life-threatening storms and epidemics, encountered pirates, witnessed the 1719 battle for Pensacola, described the 1729 Natchez Uprising, and gave account of the 1739-1740 French expedition against the Chickasaws. Dumont's adventures, as recorded in his 1747 memoir conserved at the Newberry Library, underscore the complexity of the expanding French Atlantic world, offering a singular perspective on early colonialism in Louisiana. His life story also provides detailed descriptions and illustrations of the peoples and environment of the lower Mississippi valley. This English translation of the unabridged memoir features a new introduction, maps, and a biographical dictionary to enhance the text. Dumont emerges here as an important colonial voice and brings to vivid life the French Atlantic.
