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These diverse essays investigate political factors behind the rapid development of cartography in Renaissance Europe and its impact on emerging European nations. By 1500 a few rulers had already discovered that better knowledge of their lands would strengthen their control over them; by 1550, the cartographer's art had become an important instrument for bringing territories under the control of centralized government. Throughout the following century increasing governmental reliance on maps demanded greater accuracy and more sophisticated techniques. This volume, a detailed survey of the political uses of cartography between 1400 and 1700 in Europe, answers these questions: When did monarchs...
This book explores the literary and cultural rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666.
Printed images were widely disseminated in early-modern Britain, yet, by comparison with texts, they have been relatively neglected, even by historians to whom they ought to be of the greatest interest. This volume helps remedy this state of affairs. Complementing the online digital library of British printed images to 1700, it offers a series of essays which demonstrate the many and varied ways in which images can better integrated into the history of the period. Including contributions from many leading exponents of the cultural history of early-modern Britain, it repeatedly underlines how every facet of British culture in the period can be better understood with an appreciation of printed images.
As a celebration of Anne Thurston’s pioneering work on records and archives management as an essential basis for demonstrating integrity in government, this excellent volume brings together scholars and practicing archivists to discuss key issues around records as evidence for accountability, transparency and the protection of citizens’ rights. Never before have authors from the developing and developed worlds come together to explore the intersection of records management, public administration and international development. The book covers Thurston’s work, the importance of records management for effective governance and digital records management and preservation in developing countries. Case studies from across Africa enhance the theoretical and practical perspectives taken by the authors. This book is essential reading for scholars and students interested in records management and good governance around the world.
Edited and richly annotated by Lt Cdr Andrew David, this volume offers for the first time a complete transcript of the handwritten journal kept by William Broughton on his voyage to the North Pacific (1795-1798), together with supplementary letters and the journal of Broughton's journey across Mexico (1793). An extensive introduction by Professor Barry Gough places the voyage in its historical context. Broughton had first visited the North Pacific in 1792 in command of the brig Chatham during Vancouver's voyage. When negotiations between Vancouver and Juan Francisco Bodega y Quadra reached an impasse, Broughton was sent back to London to seek fresh instructions, travelling across Mexico and returning to Europe in Spanish ships. Back in London in July 1793 he was appointed in command of the sloop Providence with orders to rejoin Vancouver in the Pacific, taking with him the astronomer John Crosley.
In 1582 Alessandro Valignano, the Visitor to the Jesuit mission in the East Indies, sent four Japanese boys to Europe. Until the arrival of the embassy in Europe, the Euro-Japanese encounter had been almost exclusively one way: Europeans going to Japan. This book is an account of their travels, their long journeys out and back, and the 20 months in Europe being received by popes and kings. It was published in Macao in 1590 with the title De Missione Legatorvm Iaponensium ad Romanum curiam. The present edition is the first complete version of this rich, complex and impressive work to appear in English, and is accompanied with maps and illustrations of the mission, and an introduction discussing its context and the subsequent reception of the book.
This book examines the 1583 voyage of Sir Humphrey Gilbert to North America. This was England's first attempt at colonization beyond the British Isles, yet it has not been subject to thorough scholarly analysis for more than 70 years. An exhaustive examination of the voyage reveals the complexity and preparedness of this and similar early modern colonizing expeditions. Prominent Elizabethans assisted Gilbert by researching and investing in his expedition: the Printing Revolution was critical to their plans, as Gilbert’s supporters traveled throughout England with promotional literature proving England’s claim to North America. Gilbert’s experts used maps and charts to publicize and navigate, while his pilots experimented with new navigating tools and practices. Though he failed to establish a settlement, Gilbert created a blueprint for later Stuart colonizers who achieved his vision of a British Empire in the Western Hemisphere. This book clarifies the role of cartography, natural science, and promotional literature in Elizabethan colonization and elucidates the preparation stages of early modern colonizing voyages.
This is the second of a pair of volumes publishing the unedited full reports of Robert Schomburgk's travels in Guiana between 1835 and 1844, previously available only in greatly abridged and heavily edited versions. It covers the journeys made by Schomburgk when surveying and establishing the boundaries of British Guiana, now Guyana, between 1841 and 1843.
Great Britain and Ireland enjoy a rich cartographic heritage, yet historians have not made full use of early maps in their writings and research. This is partly due to a lack of information about exactly which maps are available. With the publication of this volume from the Royal Historical Society, we now have a comprehensive guide to the early maps of Great Britain. The book is divided into two parts: part one describes the history and purpose of maps in a series of short essays on the early mapping of the British Isles; part two comprises a guide to the collections, national and regional. Now available from Cambridge University Press, this volume provides an essential reference tool for anyone requiring to access maps of the British Isles dating back to the medieval period and beyond.
This is the third and final volume in the set of William Scoresby's journals. It contains the unpublished accounts of his three voyages 1817, 1818 and 1820. During the years of the voyages in this volume Scoresby's life changed profoundly. An unsuccessful hunt for whales in 1817 led to a break with the Whitby shipowners, and command of the Fame in 1818 in partnership with his father. The partnership was a brief one, and at the end of 1818 Scoresby broke with his father and moved to Liverpool, finding new partners, completing the writing of An Account of the Arctic Regions and watching the construction of his new ship, the Baffin. Meanwhile he suffered a severe financial loss and made a profo...