How technological advances and colonial fears inspired utopian geoengineering projects during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries From the 1870s to the mid-twentieth century, European explorers, climatologists, colonial officials, and planners were avidly interested in large-scale projects that might actively alter the climate. Uncovering this history, Desert Edens looks at how arid environments and… Read More Philipp Lehmann (2022): Desert Edens. Colonial Climate Engineering in the Age of Anxiety. Princeton University Press: Princeton.

One of the greatest stories of world exploration ever told. By the late eighteenth century, the river Niger was a 2,000-year-old two-part geographical problem. Solving it would advance European knowledge of Africa, provide a route to commercial opportunity and help eradicate the evil of slavery.Mungo Park achieved lasting fame in 1796 by solving the first… Read More Charles W. J. Withers (2022): Majestic River: Mungo Park and the Exploration of the Niger. Birlinn Ld.: Edinburgh.

arten sind Instrumente zur Vermessung der Welt. Die von ihnen erzeugten Raumbilder dokumentieren geschichtliche Entwicklungen in all ihrer Kontinuität und Dynamik. Sie spiegeln die Dauerhaftigkeit von Naturverhältnissen ebenso wider wie die Verschiebung von Machtverhältnissen und Grenzen. Es sind besonders Kriegszeiten, in denen Räume neu vermessen, Karten neu gezeichnet und für die Information der Öffentlichkeit genutzt… Read More Martin Jeske (2023): Ein Imperium wird vermessen: Kartographie, Kulturtransfer und Raumerschließung im Zarenreich (1797–1919). De Gruyter Oldenbourg: Berlin.

Parmi les livres qui ont permis aux sociétés modernes et contemporaines d’élaborer une nouvelle compréhension du monde terrestre à la suite des entreprises de découverte et de conquête engagées par les puissances européennes, les atlas géographiques, dès leur apparition en Europe à la fin du XVIe siècle, ont occupé une place déterminante. À la fois… Read More Jean Marc Besse (2022) (ed.): Forme du savoir, forme de pouvoir. Les atlas géographiques à l’époque moderne et contemporaine. Publications de l’École française de Rome: Rome

By delving into the complex, cross-generational exchanges that characterize any political project as rampant as empire, this thought-provoking study focuses on children and their ambivalent, intimate relationships with maps and practices of mapping at the dawn of the „American Century.“ Considering children as students, map and puzzle makers, letter writers, and playmates, Mahshid Mayar interrogates… Read More Mahshid Mayar (2022): Citizens and Rulers of the World. The American Child and the Cartographic Pedagogies of Empire, The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill.