Description - The Self-Made Map by Tom Conley
Illuminates the connection between literature, identity and mapmaking in 15th and 16th-century France. This work argues that during the Renaissance in France a "new cartograhic impulse" affected both the "graphic and imaginary forms of literature". The author demonstrates that as newmaps were plotted, a new sense of self emerged, one defined in part by the relationship of the self to space. Tracing the explosion of interest in mapmaking that occurred with the discovery of the New World, and discusses the commensurate rise of what he defines as cartographic wrting - writing that "holds, penetrates, delineates and explores space". Considering the works of such writers as Rabelais, Montaigne, and Descartes, the author provides a navigation through the printed page, revealing the emerging values of Renaissance France. In his examination of the placing of words, letters and graphic elements in books, he exposes the playful and sometimes enigmatic relation between spatial organization and text. He also exposes the ideological exercise inherent in mapmaking, arguing that Renaissance cartography is inseparably bound up with the politics of the era.
The book combines studies of art, geography, history, literature, and printing to show a clear historical transformation, along the way linking geographical discoveries, printing processes and political awareness.
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