Circulation and the Emergence of Modern Mapping

Great Britain and Early Colonial India, 1764–1820

Bibliographic Data

ID20049810
AuthorsKapil Raj (0000-0002-1243-2754, corresponding author)
Year2007
Pages60-94
Publication date2007-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeCHAPTER
VenueRelocating Modern Science (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan UK (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1057/9780230625310_3
OpenAlexW2367218964
ISBN9780230625310
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited19

It is commonly believed that modern cartography and the surveying activity on which it is based are a purely Western invention introduced into the rest of the world in the course of European colonial expansion. To take an example, in his book on the British geographical surveys of South Asia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Matthew Edney states that 'cartographic culture' is the transplanting from Europe to India by the British elites of what he calls a 'spatial architecture rooted in non-Indian mathematics and structures'. 'For the British in India', he states, the measurement and observation inherent to each act of surveying represented science. By measuring the land, by imposing European science and rationality on the Indian landscape, the British distinguished themselves from the Indians: they did science, the Indians did not, unless in a limited way and then only at the express request of a British official...The practising of cartography—the making of surveys and the compilation of maps—was quintessentially at once a scientific and a British activity. KeywordsEighteenth CenturyIndian SubcontinentBritish LibraryOrdnance SurveyRoute SurveyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves

Ancient history · Archaeology · Cartography · Circulation (fluid dynamics) · Colonialism · Genealogy · Geography · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Engineering · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Migration, Health, Geopolitics, Historical Geography

Tools

Open DOILibgen