History of Cartography
Until the 1980s, the study of the history of cartography was defined by two idealizations: (1) that maps are strictly factual statements and (2) that cartography is an innately progressive science that serves as a surrogate for Western civilization as a whole. Then, the recognition that maps are actually cultural texts made for specific functions transformed map history into an exciting, interdisciplinary field of study. Scholars across the humanities and social sciences now seek to understand how past peoples thought about and acted in their particular worlds. The result is a substantial literature, which in many respects resembles a multifaceted iceberg: each disciplinary perspective reveals only the tip. In taking a series of selective and topical cuts through the recent literature, this bibliography cannot take every new perspective into account. Necessarily excluded are the older literature, which despite its conceptual flaws, contains a wealth of important information; narratives of the development of maps of specific regions (“The Mapping of X”); and cartobibliographies (mostly regional in scope).