After the Map

Cartography, Navigation, and the Transformation of Territory in the Twentieth Century

William Rankin

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780226600536, 9780226339368
• eBook ISBN: 9780226339535
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

For most of the twentieth century, maps were indispensable. They were how governments understood, managed, and defended their territory, and during the two world wars they were produced by the hundreds of millions. Cartographers and journalists predicted the dawning of a "map-minded age," where increasingly state-of-the-art maps would become everyday tools. By the century's end, however, there had been decisive shift in mapping practices, as the dominant methods of land surveying and print publication were increasingly displaced by electronic navigation systems.
           
In After the Map, William Rankin argues that although this shift did not render traditional maps obsolete, it did radically change our experience of geographic knowledge, from the God's-eye view of the map to the embedded subjectivity of GPS. Likewise, older concerns with geographic truth and objectivity have been upstaged by a new emphasis on simplicity, reliability, and convenience. After the Map shows how this change in geographic perspective is ultimately a transformation of the nature of territory, both social and political.

Index

Page numbers in italic refer to figures.

Abler, Ronald, 281

Abyssinia, 319n44. See also Ethiopia

Adams, Cyrus, 36

Adams, Oscar, 140, 141, 143–44, 339n52

aerial photography, 83, 85, 221, 231, 336n13

Aerosat satellite system, 367n26, 368n37

Aerospace Corporation, 274, 369n41, 370n48, 370n50

Africa: airway schemes and, 210–11; American antennas for radionavigation and, 264, 264, 266; cadastral coordinate systems and, 160, 343n98; Cape-to-Cairo line and, 211; cartographic partition of, 39; colonial possessions in, 158, 159, 160; distribution of IMW mapmaking responsibility and, 38–39, 39, 319n41, 331n77; ellipsoids and, 194, 194, 195; grid systems and, 132, 157–61, 159, 342nn93–94; missing sheets from IMW and, 67; provisionality in IMW maps and, 60, 325n100; US-offered mass calculations for, 192; UTM and, 169, 183, 184, 189–90, 192, 196, 344n9

Agnew, John, 13

AGS. See American Geographical Society (AGS)

Alaska, 72, 76, 83, 191, 224, 243, 245, 348n65

Albania, 189, 350n85

Algeria, 224, 330n65

Alpha (Альфа) radionavigation, 364n5

Althusser, Louis, 321n65

American Airlines, 77

American Geographical Society (AGS): archival imperialism of, 58; Latin America sheets for the US Army Air Force and, 83; Map of Hispanic America and, 57–62, 57, 58, 62, 63, 324n96, 325n98; Mexico map by, Gallery 6, 82; provisional mapping and, 324n88, 324n96; relative reliability diagrams and, 60, 60, 62; World Land Use Survey and, 331n75

AMS. See US Army Map Service (AMS)

Antarctica: Antarctic Treaty (1959) and, 8; IMW and, 65, 67; missing from world maps, 77, 79; US-published map of, 325n2

Arctic Ocean, 9, 10, 312n20

Arctic region, 69–70

Argentina, 45, 264, 291, 318n27, 348–49n70, 366n23

Argos satellite system, 367n27, 368n37

artillery targeting. See military targeting

Ascension, 292

Asia: central Asia as geographical pivot area and, 326n9; distribution of IMW mapmaking responsibility and, 319n41, 319n46; UTM and, 183, 184

AT&T, 235

Australia: distribution of mapmaking responsibility and, 86, 88, 319n41, 331n77; ellipsoids and, 195; IMW du...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Possibly Ambiguous Terms
• Introduction Territory and the Mapping Sciences
• I. The International Map of the World and the Logic of Representation
• II. Cartographic Grids and New Territories of Calculation
• III. Electronic Navigation and Territorial Pointillism
• Acknowledgments
• Acronyms and Codenames
• Notes
• Index
• Color Gallery