Mapping an Atlantic World, circa 1500

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About Mapping An Atlantic World, Circa 1500

Review In this wonderful book, richly detailed yet concise and clear, Dr. Alida Metcalf examines the rapid accumulation of European knowledge about the Atlantic World during roughly the decade on either side of the year 1500. -- Neil Kennedy ― Global Maritime HistoryAn excellently written and painstakingly researched account of a handful of the earliest large-scale maps of the Americas, beginning with Juan de la Cosa and ending with Waldseemüller. Metcalf also pays a great deal of attention to the mechanical process of making these maps. -- Patricia Seed, University of California, Irvine, author of The Oxford Map Companion: One Hundred Sources in World HistoryMetcalf references a remarkable array of manuscript and printed maps and charts to advance a provocative argument: by depicting the Atlantic Ocean as a place of opportunity and exploitation, these artifacts both explained Europeans' rapid interest in the western Atlantic and created the Atlantic World. An original approach and interpretation, sure to interest readers in diverse fields. -- Alison Games, Georgetown University, author of Inventing the English Massacre: Amboyna in History and MemoryCarefully following the craft of manuscript chart-makers and print-makers of maps, Metcalf brilliantly demonstrates that when European world maps were radically and suddenly decentered circa 1500, it was artisans, not emperors, missionaries, or conquistadors, who established the conventions of how to represent continents and new peoples for centuries to come. -- Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, University of Texas at Austin, author of Nature, Empire, And Nation: Explorations of the History of Science in the Iberian WorldIn this erudite and deeply researched volume, Alida Metcalf probes how the Atlantic Ocean became central to the production of maps, forerunners of the integrated Atlantic world brought about by European expansion. By meticulously reconstructing circuits of knowledge and networks of individuals, this book makes a major contribution to multiple fields of historical inquiry. -- Roquinaldo Ferreira, University of Pennsylvania, author of Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World: Angola and Brazil during the Era of the Slave TradeIn this wonderful book, richly detailed yet concise and clear, Dr. Alida Metcalf examines the rapid accumulation of European knowledge about the Atlantic World during roughly the decade on either side of the year 1500.The extensive notes and bibliography of maps and images, historical events, and modern sources reflect the depth of the author's study and are rich resources for further investigation. -- Gregory McIntosh, University of Lisbon ― IMCOS JournalMapping an Atlantic World, Circa 1500 is a light and entertaining read, especially for those who are not familiar with the cartographic history of the Renaissance. -- Jörn Seemann, Ball State University ― Cartographic PerspectivesThe book is well written, and it is clear that the author has a strong grasp of the material. -- Richard Pflederer, author of Finding their Way at Sea and the Commentary ― The Portolan Product Description How did intricately detailed sixteenth-century maps reveal the start of the Atlantic World?Beginning around 1500, in the decades following Columbus's voyages, the Atlantic Ocean moved from the periphery to the center on European world maps. This brief but highly significant moment in early modern European history marks not only a paradigm shift in how the world was mapped but also the opening of what historians call the Atlantic World. But how did sixteenth-century chartmakers and mapmakers begin to conceptualize―and present to the public―an interconnected Atlantic World that was open and navigable, in comparison to the mysterious ocean that had blocked off the Western hemisphere before Columbus's exploration?In Mapping an Atlantic World, circa 1500, Alida C. Metcalf argues that the earliest surviving maps from this era, which depict trade, colonization, e