2024 Books in Map History, plus some I missed from 2023

It’s time for the annual list; this includes some more conceptual and contemporary works. I doubt if I’ll see any more before the end of the year, so here it is. Previous annual lists are from 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, and 2017.

As ever, inclusion in this list does not mean that I’ve actually seen the book. I do have many of the following, and the Osher Map Library has more, but some I still know only from library catalogs, social media, or amazon.com. Similarly, inclusion is not a sign of approbation; I’m just presenting the titles that I have encountered.

Note: for the most part, I generally include books according to their US publication date.

Do I have any favorites from this year’s haul? These lists are always a bit of a grab bag, given the sheer breadth of this field, and there are many excellent works. I especially appreciate Mike Duggan’s All Mapped Out as a culturally sensitive exploration of maps in modern life; Hannah Fitzpatrick’s Mapping Partition for its attention to the Pakistani politics of the Partition of British India; Carla Lois’ Terrae Incognitae: Mapping the Unknown, with wide-ranging insights into a fundamental question for map history; Finnian Ó Cionnaith’s Origin of Ireland’s Ordnance Survey, which extends John Andrews’ classic text (Paper Landscape [1975]) to cover a topic that Andrews had avoided; and the eye-opening collection by Tania Rossetto and Laura Lo Presti, The Routledge Handbook of Cartographic Humanities, in which I’m honored to have an essay. I should also mention Dariusz Wójcik’s Atlas of Finance, with wonderful maps and visualizations by James Cheshire and Oliver Liberti.

Have fun reading!

Adelusi-Adeluyi, Ademide. 2024. Imagine Lagos: Mapping History, Place, and Politics in a Nineteenth-Century African City. Athens: Ohio University Press.

Afanador Llach, María José. 2023. Entre líneas: Una historia de Colombia en mapas. Ed. Sebastián Díaz Ángel, Lucía Duque Muñoz, Santiago Muñoz Arbeláez, and Anthony Picón Rodríguez. Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes, Editorial Planeta Colombiana.

Aït-Touati, Frédérique. 2024. Théâtres du monde: Fabriques de la nature en Occident. Paris: La Découverte.

Alexander, Amir. 2024. Liberty’s Grid: A Founding Father, a Mathematical Dreamland, and the Shaping of America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Alvarez León, Luis F. 2024. The Map in the Machine: Charting the Spatial Architecture of Digital Capitalism. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Antoine, Annie, and Benjamin Landais, eds. 2023. Cartographier le parcellaire rural dans l’Europe d’Ancien Régime. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes.

Armston-Sheret, Edward. 2024. On the Backs of Others: Rethinking the History of British Geographical Exploration. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Beck, Lauren, ed. 2024. A Cultural History of Exploration. 6 vols. London: Bloomsbury.

Vol. 1. A Cultural History of Exploration in Antiquity, ed. Daniela Dueck

Vol. 2. A Cultural History of Exploration in the Middle Ages, ed. William D. Phillips, Jr.

Vol. 3. A Cultural History of Exploration in the Early Modern Age, ed. Lauren Beck

Vol. 4. A Cultural History of Exploration in the Age of Expansion and Enlightenment, ed. Gayle K. Brunelle

Vol. 5. A Cultural History of Exploration in the Industrial Age, ed. Jane Samson

Vol. 6. A Cultural History of Exploration in the Modern Age, ed. Martin Thomas

Behrooz, Anahit. 2024. Mapping Middle-Earth: Environmental and Political Narratives in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Cartographies. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Besse, Jean-Marc. 2023. Quelle est la raison des cartes? Collections milieux 005. Paris: Éditions deux-cent-cinq.

Bhalai, Suresh. 2023. The History of Mining and Geological Surveys in Jamaica. Cham: Springer International.

Black, Jeremy. 2024. A History of the Railroad in 100 Maps. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bonnett, Alastair. 2024. 40 Maps that Will Change How You See the World. London: Ivy Press.

Bos, Jeroen, ed. 2024. Beyond the Map: Descriptions of the non-European World in Joan Blaeu’s Atlas Maior. Groningen: University of Groningen. •• open access at https://opentextbooks.rug.nl/beyondthemap/. Accompanies a digital exhibition at https://www.rug.nl/library/heritage/exhibitions/virtual-exhibitions/expo-blaeu/

Boskamp, Ulrike, Tabea Braun, Amrei Buchholz, Annette Kranen, eds. 2023. Pasted Topographies. Terrain: Studies on Topographic Visual Media, 1. Heidelberg: arthistoricum.net. •• open access at https://katalog.arthistoricum.net/id/0-1877159794

Brentjes, Rana, Sonja Brentjes, and Stamatina Mastorakou, eds. 2024. Imagining the Heavens Across Eurasia: From Antiquity to Early Modernity. n.p.: Mimesis International.

Brotton, Jerry. 2024. Four Points of the Compass: The Unexpected History of Direction. London: Allen Lane.

Brown, Tristan G. 2024. Laws of the Land: Fengshui and the State in Qing Dynasty China. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Butler, Kris. 2024. Drink Maps in Victorian Britain. Oxford: Bodleian Library.

Caputo, Sara. 2024. Tracks on the Ocean: A History of Trailblazing, Maps, and Maritime Travel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Casati, Roberto. 2024. The Cognitive Life of Maps. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Cheng, Irene. 2023. The Shape of Utopia: The Architecture of Radical Reform in Nineteenth-Century Utopia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Chiari, Sophie, ed. 2023. “The Circulation of Cosmographical Knowledge in Early Modern Europe.” Journal of Early Modern Studies 12. https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/bsfm-jems/issue/view/607

Cosentino, Delia A., and Adriana Zavala. 2023. Resurrecting Tenochtitlan: Imagining the Aztec Capital in Modern Mexico City. Austin: University of Texas Press.

De Maeyer, Juliette, Aleksandra Kaminska, and Ghislain Thibault, eds. 2024. Material Histories of Paper. N.p.: Living Books about History (https://livingbooksabouthistory.ch/en/). •• open access reference re key mapping material, although nothing about maps per se

di Robilant, Andrea. 2024. This Earthly Globe: A Venetian Geographer and the Quest to Map the World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. •• re Giovanni Battista Ramusio and the Navigationi et viaggi

Duggan, Mike. 2024. All Mapped Out: How Maps Shape Us. London: Reaktion.

Fitzpatrick, Hannah. 2024. Mapping Partition: Politics, Territory and the End of Empire in India and Pakistan. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Fuller, Mary C. 2023. Lines Drawn across the Globe: Reading Richard Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations. Montreal and Kingston, Ont.: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Furtado, Júnia Ferreira. 2024. L’Amérique méridionale: The Map that Shaped Brazil in the 18th century. Leiden: Brill.

Gasser, Michael, and Meda Diana Hotea, eds. 2024. Handbuch der kartografischen Sammlungen der Schweiz. Zurich: ETH Library. •• open access at https://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/handle/20.500.11850/708573

Gillin, Edward J. 2024. An Empire of Magnetism: Global Science and the British Magnetic Survey in the Age of Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Grosseteste, Robert. 2024. Mapping the Universe: Robert Grosseteste’s De sphera “On the Sphere,” ed. Giles E. M. Gasper, Tom C. B. McLeish, Sigbjörn Olsen Sönnesyn, and Hannah E. Smithson. Volume 2 of The Scientific Works of Grosseteste. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Guleij, Ron, ed. 2023. The Great Book of Dutch Maps: Five Centuries of Cartography. Zwolle: Wbooks. •• English translation of a book published in Dutch in 2022

Hahn, Andy. 2024. Mapping St. Louis: A History of the Gateway City in 40 Rare Maps. St. Louis, MO: Reedy Press.

Hall, Debbie. 2024. Adventures in Maps. Oxford: Bodleian Library.

Hogan, Thatcher. 2024. Mapping the Adirondacks: Colvin, Blake, and the First True Survey of the Great Adirondack Wilderness.: North Country Books.

Holcomb, Frank H. 2024. Landmark Maps of Texas: The Frank and Carol Holcomb Collection. Ed. Bruce M. Shackelford and Katherine Nelson Hall. Kerryville, TX: State House Press.

Horodowich, Elizabeth, and Alexander Nagel. 2023. Amerasia. New York: Zone Books.

Horst, Thomas, Harald Schwaetzer, and Matthias Vollet, eds. 2022. Universum infinitum: Nicolaus Cusanus and the 15th-Century Iberian Explorations of the Ocean World. Texte und Studien zur europäischen Geistesgeschichte, 25. Münster: Aschendorff Verlag.

Hostetler, Laura, ed. 2024. Reimagining the Globe and Cultural Exchange: The East Asian Legacies of Matteo Ricci’s World Map. Studies in the History of Christianity in East Asia, 9. Leiden: Brill. •• open access at https://brill.com/edcollbook-oa/title/68461

Hoyle, Richard, with Linda Fletcher and Nicky Talbot. 2023. The Estates of Thomas Talbot and John Talbot of Langford. London: List and Index Society.

Huffman, Kristin Love, ed. 2024. A View of Venice: Portrait of a Renaissance City. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. •• re Jacopo de’ Barbari’s 1500 view of Venice

Husson, Jean-Pierre. 2024. Dialogue avec les cartes anciennes: Miroirs d’une Lorraine disparue (16e–18e siècle). Nancy: Éditions de l’Université de Lorraine.

Hutch, Philip, and Elaine Stratford. 2023. Landscape, Association, Empire: Imagining Van Diemen’s Land. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kaba, Mariame, and Max Canner. 2023. Louise E. Jefferson: Trailblazing Black Cartographer. New York: Mariame Kaba.

Kapoor, Pramod, Sneha Pamneja, and Swapna Liddle. 2023. Shahjahanabad: Mapping a Mughal City. New Delhi, London: Roli, British Library.

Karner, Herbert, and Martina Stercken, eds. 2024. Habsburg kartieren: Schriftbildliche Entwürfe von Herrschaft im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Kent, Alexander J., ed. 2024. Landmarks in Mapping: 50 Years of the Cartographic Journal. London: Routledge.

Kenzheakhmet, Nurlan. 2023. European-Chinese Imperial Maps and Gazetteers Related to the Kazakh (Qazaq) Khanate and its Adjacent Regions from the 16th to the 19th Centuries. Deutsche Ostasienstudien, 44. Gossenberg: Ostasien Verlag.

Lane, K. Maria D. 2024. Fluid Geographies: Water, Science, and Settler Colonialism in New Mexico. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lange, Diana, and Benjamin van der Linde. 2023. Maps and Colours: A Complex Relationship. Leiden: Brill. •• publication delayed from 2023

Leca, Radu, and Martijn Storms, eds. 2024. Enduring Encounters: Maps of Japan from Leiden University Library. Leiden: Brill.

Lévesque-St-Louis, Jérémie. 2023. Retracer le territoire, tracer le pays: L’arpenteur général Joseph Bouchette, 1791–1840. Québec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval.

Lee, Min Kyung. 2024. The Tyranny of the Straight Line: Mapping Modern Paris. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Lois, Carla. 2024. Terrae Incognitae: Mapping the Unknown. Trans. Darío Zárate Figueroa. Leiden: Brill.

Lukinbeal, Chris. 2025. Cinematic Cartography: Scale, Analysis, Topography. n.p.: Routledge. •• actually available in 2024

Makala, Jeffrey M. 2023. Publishing Plates: Stereotyping and Electrotyping in Nineteenth-Century US Print Culture. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. •• although not dealing with maps directly, deals with technologies used extensively for map printing

Matthew, Christopher A. 2023. Eratosthenes and the Measurement of the Earth’s Circumference (c. 230 BC). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mericskay, Boris, ed. 2024. Cartographic Communication: Graphic Semiology, Semiotics and Geovisualization. London and Hoboken, NJ: ISTE and Wiley.

Mittman, Asa Simon. 2024. Cartographies of Exclusion: Anti-Semitic Mapping in Medieval England. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Muller, Frederik. 2021. El primer mapa de México. N.p.: Arte & Cultura.

Nag, Prithvish. 2023. Transformation of Survey of India. Cambridge: Ethics Press.

Newitt, Malyn. 2023. Navigations: The Portuguese Discoveries and the Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Nicandri, David L. 2024. Discovering Nothing: In Pursuit of an Elusive Northwest Passage. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Nugent, Nicholas. 2024. The Spice Ports: Mapping the Origins of the Global Sea Trade. Chicago: University of Chicago Press for Brandeis University Press.

Ó Cionnaith, Finnian. 2024. The Origin of Ireland’s Ordnance Survey: Taxation, Townlands and Topography. Dublin: Four Courts Press.

Otis, Jessica Marie. 2024. By the Numbers: Numeracy, Religion, and the Quantitative Transformation of Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ovenden, Mark. 2024. Iconic Transit Maps: The World’s Best Designs. London: Prestel.

Parker, Philip. 2024. History of Cities in Maps: The Ultimate Visual Exploration of Human Civilisation through 70 Captivating Historical Maps. London: Collins.

Peerlings, R. H. J. and F. Laurentius. 2023. Berlinghieri’s Geography Unveiled. Middleberg, Neth.: www.berlinghieri.eu.

Reitinger, Franz. 2024. Die Kunst der Feldarbeit: Anfänge der Ingenieurkartographie in Mitteleuropa. Vienna: Böhlau.

Richardson, Paul. 2024. Myths of Geography: An Insightful Exploration of World Maps, Borders, and Civilizations―Debunking Long-Held Assumptions and Unraveling the True History of the World. London: Hanover Square Press.

Rodríguez Wittmann, Kevin. 2024. Mapping Insularity: A Visual History of Islands in Medieval and Early Modern Worlds. Leiden: Brill.

Roller, Duane W. 2024. The Geographical Guide of Ptolemy of Alexandria: An Analysis. London: Routledge.

Rossetto, Tania, and Laura Lo Presti, eds. 2024. The Routledge Handbook of Cartographic Humanities. London: Routledge.

Rowińska, Paulina. 2024. Mapmatics: A Mathematician’s Guide to Navigating the World. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

Saladin, Irina. 2024. Jesuit Missionary Cartography of the Upper Amazon, 1689 to 1789. Trans. Pamela Selwyn. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Schaik, Anne-Rieke van. 2024. Ground Breakers: Remarkable Maps from the Low Countries, 1500–1900. n.p.: Hannibal.

Shannon, William. 2024. Cumbria: 1,000 Years of Maps. Loughrigg: Jake Island.

Shaw, Denis J. B. 2024. Reconnoitring Russia: Mapping, Exploring and Describing Early Modern Russia, 1613–1825. London: UCL Press. •• open access at https://ow.ly/1HwW50THR2B

Shindell, Matthew, ed. 2024. Lunar: A History of the Moon in Myths, Maps, and Matter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Spychal, Martin. 2024. Mapping the State: English Boundaries and the 1832 Reform Act. London: University of London Press.

Steegh, John, Harrie Teunissen, and Sander Vermeer. 2023. Moderniteit in kaart: Ontwerp en ruimte in de moderne tijd. Zwolle: Wbooks.

Stevenson [i.e., Jean-Luc Arnaud, Jean-Marc Besse, Guillaume Monsaingeon, Gilles Palsky]. 2023. Mappa Naturae. Marseille: Parenthèses.

———. 2024. Mappa Grafica. Marseille: Parenthèses.

Strabo. 2024. Strabo’s Geography: A Translation for the Modern World. Trans. Sarah Pothecary. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Suire, Yannis. 2024. Oléron, Rochefort, la Charente et la Saintonge vers 1700: Cartes, plans et mémoires de Claude Masse, ingénieur du roi. La Roche-sur-Yon: Éditions du CVRH.

Taylor, Jessica Lauren. 2023. Plain Paths and Dividing Lines: Navigating Native Land and Water in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.

Terpstra, Nicholas. 2024. Senses of Space in the Early Modern World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. •• open access at https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/senses-of-space-in-the-early-modern-world/BC3DC42753932160BA8E1B7AFF457A4C

Wang, Sheng-Wei. 2024. Chinese Global Exploration in the Pre-Columbian Era: Evidence from an Ancient World Map. Singapore: World Scientific. •• included as a curiosity; it very much lies outside the historiographical mainstream!

Wiersema, Juliet B. 2024. The History of a Periphery: Spanish Colonial Cartography from Colombia’s Pacific Lowlands. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Wójcik, Dariusz, James Cheshire, and Oliver Liberti. 2024. Atlas of Finance: Mapping the Global Story of Money. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.