The Dictionary of Human Geography

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cartographic history for legitimation: the

historians’ narratives of past cartographic

progress, whether in content or in form, valid-

ate the modern convictions that maps are

unproblematic replications of geographical

data (see cartographic reason) and that

cartography is an inherently moral practice

aimed at improving the human condition.

Map history has thus served as a surrogate

for the triumphs of modern Westernscience

andcivilizationgenerally. Theseempiricist

andpositivistideals were further perpetuated

by the historical narratives constructed in

order to justify an academic status for cartog-

raphy (Edney, 2005b), and they further

underpin a rapidly growing popular literature

that allies the powerful myth of cartographic

progress to the equally powerful myth of the

lone scientific genius.

Paradoxically, the ‘history ofcartography’

ended up establishing the broader intellectual

potential of map studies and led to the prolif-

eration of a ‘historyof cartography’ that has

taken map studies far beyond the confines of

academic cartography and geography (Edney,

2005a,b). Several factors contributed to the

shift: attention to the larger historical record

revealed many more cartographic activities

than were encompassed by the established

canon; detailed archival studies increasingly

suggested that maps must be considered as

humanistic as well as technological/scientific

documents; academic cartography’s adher-

ence to models of communication made some

historians aware of the need to study how

maps were used as well as made; and academic

cartography’s claims to intellectual autonomy

were matched by arguments that the history of

cartography should no longer be subservient

to other fields (esp. Blakemore and Harley,

1980). A triumphal, empiricist history of

cartographic progress was increasingly recog-

nized as intellectually bankrupt. In 1977,

Denis Wood could accordingly present a

structuralist reinterpretation of the history of

cartography as part of a larger critique of

academic cartography (seestructuralism).

For Wood, the history of cartography repli-

cated the development of spatial cognition

in the individual; he has subsequently clung

to this argument, even as he has made truly

significant distinctions between the necessarily

social processes of ‘map making’ and individ-

ual processes of cognitive ‘mapping’ (Wood

and Fels, 1992).

By the late 1970s, Brian Harley and David

Woodward had set out to create a new,

autonomous discipline of the history of

cartography by unifying the widely dispersed

literature within a multi-volumeHistory of car-

tography. Even with only three of six volumes

published to date, the series has already

proven enormously influential in promoting

the catholic and humanistic study of carto-

graphic history. The extensive consideration

given to non-Western and pre-modern carto-

graphies has loosened the west’s putative

stranglehold on ‘proper’ cartography and has

seriously undermined the conviction that

maps must be geometrically consistent, meas-

ured and graphic in nature. The series has

demonstrated unequivocally not only that the

history of cartography is a valid field of study

in its own right but also that it cannot hope to

make significant contributions as long as it

adheres to modern cartographic ideology

(Harley and Woodward, 1987–continues; see

Woodward, Delano Smith and Yee, 2001, esp.

pp. 23–9; Edney, 2005b).

Harley also set out to create a new intellec-

tual identity for the field. His initial foray, with

Michael Blakemore, drew on the art-historical

principles of iconographyto demonstrate

the manner in which maps necessarily bear

cultural and social significance in addition

to factual and locational data (Blakemore

and Harley, 1980). Subsequently, and largely

influenced by the work of philosopher–

historian Michel Foucault, Harley advanced

a series of essays on the inherently political

nature of all maps (Harley, 2001b). Harley’s

essays from the 1980s were crucial in that

they crystallized the intellectual concerns

with modern cartographic ideology already

expressed by many scholars across several dis-

ciplines, waved the flag for more critical map

studies and served as prominent vehicles for

human geography’s adoption of approaches

informed bypost-structuralism. His essays

were nonetheless incomplete. Harley suc-

ceeded brilliantly in exposing modern carto-

graphic ideology by wrenching off its mask

ofobjectivity, but he was ultimately unable

to theorize a new, criticalparadigm(Edney,

2005a).

Parallel to, drawing on, and at the same

time motivating Harley’s theoretical expose ́s

were studies by scholars in other fields who,

unburdened with any disciplinary baggage,

recognized (or simply ignored) the traditional

shortcomings of map history. These scholars

included sociologists and political scientists

as well as historians (e.g. Winichakul, 1994;

seegeo-body), but most were literary scholars

whobegantoconsider maps as simply one

more strategy of representation within

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CARTOGRAPHY, HISTORY OF