for, Emma and Justin he Ouro tarkeato has, jomeco. 1793 The Geographical Tradition Episodes in the History of a Contested Enterprise David N, Livingstone BLACKWELLA historian of idea ist go where his nose leads him, and it ofen chilly but not inhospitable regions whose horders are pstrolled by men who know every square foot of it... A historian of c + who stays within the limits of his di because these ideas almost invaribly are derived from Broader inquires like the origin and nature of life, the nature of man, tthe physical and biological characteristics of the earth. Of necessity they are spreed widely over many arcas of thought. ‘Caren Glackea Trace onthe Rhoitn Shove i Preface with Felix Driver have proven to be a constant source of encourag Denis Cosgrove's comments on an earlier version of chapter 3 provided some fercie lines of inquiry, and for generous permission to draw on their pre-published work T am grateful ro Charles Withets, David Stoddart, and Mike Heffeenan. Various chapters were also read and commented on by John Campbell, and by Frank Gourley, a philosopher of science, whose weekly conversations have kept me from at last some of the most foolish s. Peter Gould and John Agnew read substantial portions of the and their gentle prodding in new directions is gratefullyvii Preface acknowledged. John Davey, Jan Chat Blackwell provided much encouragem nd Ginny StroudLewis at and support while Jenitha Orr h her customary accuracy and precision, A ny of Science Committee of the Royal Society enabled me to consult materials housed in the American Phiosophical Society in Philadelphia. Yale University library has kindly given per for me to use extracts from the Ellsworh Huntington Papers. To all chese, I Alexander for her assiscance with the figures, I express my grate counsel and help, I could never have completed this Should the History of Geography be X-Rated? Telling Geograpby’s Story In Match 1974, the prestigious weekly journal Science ran a cheeky article by the distinguished historian and physicist Stephen G. Brush, entitled ‘Should the History of Science be Rated X? The basic thnust of his argue his tongue-in-cheek subtitle, was that “The bea good model quarried. Take the celebrated case of Copernicus, 1 ashes of the Copernican Revolution, they of the Copernican Revolution are not unigue in the history of science. For the conventional and comfortable image of sci= crested and objective pursuit of knowledge by way of isis and logical rigour has been similarly demythologized im the case of such scientific giants as Galileo, Kepler, Newton, 59999 SAD IDAAIAIIAIIIDDD - 39999992 Should the History of Geography be X-Rated? Telling Geography's Story 3 practice of geoprphy; that is, the exprenion of A gw the practical ourworkings of theory are over- I we forget the Darwin, Mendel, and Einstein. Small wonder thet practising scientists arc suspicious of such historical work. It tends to undermine ther efforts to ing programmes ~ makes it a prime candidate political structures and’ Titel lems. who wans to indoctrinate his stadems in the tradi- neural fac finder should nox use historical | 1 suggest thar the tional cole of the ther hand, those teachers who want co | teibosts en convey some undevaning marks on the conceptual horizon, But readers to draw the map. That need to be said, During the course of this book, therefore, we will find ou selves asking rather different questions from geography’s conventional tele, What le for nampl id geopraphy pa inp soci? Was umbilcally tied to the pas, the United Si } Congressional Report of the Task Force on Science Policy to the C | on Science and Technology emphasized in December 19€4 that | for new initiatives, new directions, or new emphases to be inchided in ~ future science policies wil be more effective and mere likly to succeed if | they are shaped against a background that includes an understanding of the, | jdm 05 lopmenss. To achieve this“ ‘Theclogy in the Twentieth Certary (Heney and London: Orel Pres, onp.4 Should the History of Geography be X-Rated? Teling Geography’s Story 5 in what I have been so far is the claim chat che status \ schemes, T want to tun to an assessment of the star raphy ~ the ‘textbook chronicles’ as Henk Aay typifies them" ~ ¢ ben issued over the years to tries of theic chosen craft. But tory of geography. It is, therefore, epee to debate, to sion 7 c nie socnann'ssronvrenns | for people. Geography’s veys have been writen by ‘no exception. The stand: dies sl eegral ‘other words, in terms of the present. The resul is chat history is from the preent to the past and this is wha is only contemplated ny Hcory andthe Grow of Gengrphic 5 Academe Geogephy te Ue Sts backwards — those to which they do have access are selected to suit their own purposes. ‘There is no history on a mortuary table. The ‘acts’ therefore do not simply ‘pak for hemi the isin sgpmantgs thei pecormene on s inescapable, But manipulation is .quite differen “ter The greatest evils of unrestrained presentism surface when pa they impose an altogether fabricated order on the past as current orthodoxy. George Stocking summarizes these pitfalls rather well ‘when he comments: wolvement and historiographical effort i imize a present point of view by consciously clsing their endeavours around a tradition as yet undeveloped ‘would be profoundly misleading. On the one hand, stich manoeuvres encourage the historian to fier out contradiction or dispute or inconsis- tency or sheer messiness, in the concern to tell « good story. Thus Tatham, for example, suppresses the genuine differences between the lading nine. ‘eenth-centuny” German geographers Ritter and Humboldt in the hope of presenting geography 2s a unified, coherent intellectual tradition. The work of these founding fathers, he plea and modem progranme for patterns were the expression of divine providence, so much so chat his ing. the_predestinarian test, constructed his googra behind much of his life's work, including his anthropo-climatology."™ To sum up, the assumption underlying the presentist channelling of hise tory into favoured streams of chough nis normative, when Hartshorne announced thar icknson, Regia Concept pp. 27-9, the driving force was ‘really complementary’; together And so we get no hint that, for example, for Ritter rograph- disclowes its essential, unchanging nature. Thus. ., chapter inthe celebrated Nature of Geography Telling Geography’s Story 9 inguiry. What other explanation can there be Course of Historical Development?” In Hartchore’s retell of geography merely becomes the handmaiden o i philosophy, precisely, to Harishorne’s geographical philosophy. Sach procedu to rule out the integrity of methodological in by putting it beyond the reaches of legitimate debate. For history has spoke % Bexides its presenism, Hartshorne’s clasic-also alerts us to another not of much history of geography writing ~ iternalism, he standard treauments pay scant attention t0 the which geographical cheores and schemes vere con- ‘sived, communicated, received, and implemented. Indeed roo often comtex- © ‘ual considerations only enter the scene to give biographical colour to the ishorne and subse- geographical superstars. As David Stoddart pu shore quently many others have traced a development within gccgra Kant through Humbold: and Ricter to Richthofen and Hettner. (of no attention ¢0 traced remains of Geography’ ic British Geography of th phy's route is followed through a su whose dates and publications are the hough admitedly concentrated, extra [In 1901, Oxford University awarded diplomas in geography to four suc candidates and in later years many ofthe county's professional geographers, hard Harshorne, The Netze of Geography. Cri Surey of Current Thug ofthe Pot (Lancasez, Pa: Aseiaten of American Geographer, 193%), pp. 31 DR Stddert 7, detion on10 Should the History of Geography be X-Rated? Telling Geogrepby's Story 1" Chicago Sequence’ ~ to vigneties of Rollin D, Economic Geography, Pe = we are invited to view it has surfaced in logists. And since ‘ior fits by aloesing to sail,2 Should the History of Geography be X-Rated? Telling Geograpby's Story B seographers to push on beyond the purely programmatic to substantive research on the history of geography have drawn heavily on this body of literature, I want ro turn now 10 a brief sketch ofits salient features. ye oe RETHINKING SCIENCE, HISTORY AND SOCIETY ‘The dislodgement of scientific knowledge from its privileged position of ‘immunity to ctiticism has come about through the work of philosophers, historians, ard sociologists. The corpus of literaruce embodying. these reassessments is both complex and extended, All I ean hope to convey in the few lines thar follow is something of the favour of these debates. But because the questions raised are crucially important in our science-domi- nated age, and because the curents of thought they represent are being feg- that we can begin to sophy of science nce the seventeenth century, science was typi- Any meaning were those Sratement like “ThOwe rocks contain quart" their eyes, because it could be rested al assumptions. The claims issed a8 meaningless. Here was another set of proposals procure knowledge untainted by personal belies, social sro, © poial apition ‘eam one in hour recourse to theo- The simpie-Feport about ce res about what constitu © eontaining, quart presupposes theo- what ‘quart i, and what counts as an ince of quartz in rock, The setting up of 4 scientific experiment fur- es the point. Clearly che whole procedure assumes distinctions Jevant-processes.— a theory-based ‘Gemarcation Popper came to rea jb. In oxber words, however, only obscured the than real. The diffcuky of The seeming fact thot opper had opened up sc if cstablishing good criteria for claims to knowledge about the world. Was it indeed possible that the long-standing reverence for thé scientific method had been misplaced, that scenic occur when the accepted paradigm is replaced by se to a compleely new programme. The shangcover n_physics is a classic case. leis like Whats This Thing Caled IK Re Popper, The Lege of yyNNI40 VVNIDIN90N00 7994 Should the History of Geography be X-Rated? Telling Geograpby's Story 8 1 Gestal-switeh; in ocher words, suddenly seeing. an_old familiar picture in a radically new way. We have all seen those pictures of a pile of boxes Which when you Took at it one way you boxess look again inge pursuits like astrology or whether poetry or drama, or mo “deciding S&eause wi digm itsell Indeed the problems in the new paradigm cannot even be expressed in the language of the old. The geological theory known 2 tectonics isa good instance. According to this theory the canines as as the ocean floors are fl plates. and have. subscant changed the configuration W's landmasses over millions of yea Tis as ed we compe i Bur these languages are, to Rorty, emphatical lary’ ~ that is, the way nature would describe i are tue, but of fin first place.” For students of, the problems which engage geologists work- imply would not make sense tothe geologis ay, to Rorty, scientific method simply means having a good list of ‘or vocabularies for tasks to be done — a_good filing system. fationaliey, then, means obeying the conventions of you ly agreed basis for deciding which scientific investigation are there fore relative to the scientific community within which research is carried ‘out, and not straightforwerd descriptions of the way the world realy is. notion chat science is cognitively superior to any other form of knowledge, ©, Kuhn, The Sracee of Scenic Reoluions (Chicago: U of Chicago Bes, 1952, elanged ei 1970,16 Should the History of Geography be X-Rated? been christened, has substantially influenced writing in the history of sc: ence.” This group, focusing on the researches of David Bloor, Barnes, Donald Mackenzie, ad Steven Shapin, has incressingly ms coherent case for scienrifc knowledge as. a cc Science, in other words, is merely the expression of social ships ins because het way into scientific pursuits at every level irae the geners} approach, fessional xs ofthe community of scien- content of scientific knowledge. The i tury boranists over the correc casifiation of plants i group grew up ona diet of morphological seudies and that specics were 10 nport schemes, because each group const quan in geography during the 19605 would sccm :0 be a prime c discovered mathemacis, many geographers were only their stacistical wizardry to their non-quantitative col was a vested intrest co be defended within the community scholars. Yet there is the suspicion thar their findings were as mach a reflection of the kinds of statistical techniques they employed as ofthe phe- nomen under scrutiny. Whatever, the argument here i fc knowiedge isa dnec 1 wn prospects, needs ro be taken tory of science, For here we come ‘The shape of the science-bnow!- industry owes mach to the primal drive to control intellectual prop- Telling Geography’s Story v € erty through publshing.outlee contra, scientific censorship, es a officiadom, and politcal sponsorship. The cultural role played by profesional scien in sociery et large is c s0-of ruc impotance. Scie = c ic, commanding niche in che mader) we q "position brings. OF course this was no cal hierarchy held the reins of cultural autho: c ligious leaders were able to exercise a ¢ some argue that the profestiona! dt 2 lation. The new priests of science c iously held by clergy I tcad of the moral lave, they spoke /!* € read of natural theology, they spoke of nacural selection; ar xy spoke of Nature. Writing of an eatlir period, Robert ae ¢ ¢ know-how, and jargon ¢0 rests ~ as in the case of ~ spring to mind, In all of these, crit- ics would say, pasiclr group interes are tinfored bythe lngange of A his poi co allow the sociologists fall rein in thei his torical explanations by arguing that they are providing belpful counts of tere fac- SN9N4999995999ah RAS 4 as a AS 454 FO 494 4 8 18 Should the History of Geography be X-Rated? Edinburgh sociologists of knowledge will have none of it. Theirs is no sock of deviant as opposed to true knowledge. ere is no independent means of discriminating , isi you will, social inating- different theories are, Mary Hesse, “ilferent_for_diferene groups and at diferent ‘are true? Unfortunately this is noc neces- the case. All sorts of pragmatic abou astronomical phenomena ~ for navigation, for example — were held by people who belied that the earth was fat, sic, and atthe centre of the | universe, and about physics by those who believed that all space was filled | tal success of 2 theory is therefore no ist jon of the world. So other argument’ mounted by those who wish to defend the defence tactics areas diverse as the defen on four key ateas of debate: scientific ra he experiment’and theory resilience! These issues ‘squarely within the philosophy of science, but because they each luce in different ways a historical dimension into the arena they are impor- tant for any attempt to understand story of geography. ir model of scientific change was his reeaion of 0) f for the shift from one paradigm to another. 2 Mar tens, lions and Reconsircions in the Pblosaphy of Stone Gass: Harve Pes per Lon “The Strong The of Sociology of Saence pe 3. Telling Geography’s Story 9 adigms or research programmes (to use Lakaros's terminology). Even allow a kegiimate theory, or problem, or solution, may. ime, Shapere believes that there is nevertheless 4 Chain of developments connecting the two different sets of crite chain through which a “rational evolution can be traced between the two. Fundamental difference between scientific belies and criteria at nwo differ hat passes for leit- tine bot ~ and thi the standard of ratio itself be 2 rational cogaitive claims. As Shapere puts it, ‘What else would count as, the way things are? y called models: Bue they are, at something as if it were something ese. This metaphor in tar becomes a kind of lens forall that, analogies or met through which the subjecr is viewed; some aspects Ma dancrs 12 Vac tebe d2» Should the History of Geography be X-Rated? Telling Geography's Story a are ignored or suppressed while others are emphasized or organized in spsife ways. So, for example prac ell ws that lh bea “ On the face of it, this might seem a thoroughly relativst conception of c models, because, at Mary Hesse develops the argument, there are k_about the, in the world (that is, that cher really exist), it does not answer the charge that our theories about them are reletivse through and through. Nevertheless it does point the way towards putting some conseraints on universal scepticism, Ta Roy Bhaskar's hands, however, experiment is taken up as a ral with rgume g ike this, suggesting new areas of investiga People faccs~ is a signal to is teuth content. tions which constitute, «8 closely as pos- the earch sciences. According to this the- sible, the closed system appropriate for testing a particular law. There is ‘ocean floors ate carr therefore, «sense in which the events observed in any experiment, whether flashes on a screen ot the postion of hands on 2 dial are brought about by naure, these events would not occur. happens shen these events are designed to test are feMullin replies, ‘the other may 17 exist independently of the agents investzat- ide.’ Now, MeMallin goes on, h ing them. Clearly, there en.the sequences of events cecorded in experinents and because che (awe themselvet anh For the objects oF the metaphor extension of a pa and predicting the discovery of Plate tectonics isa notable case ory, the continents 8 vwhich move on the outer ‘clue to the realist steke in mi cess of the metaphor ‘is the entailmens and cetensons that make them susceptible to testing procedures * as | were. So we endeavour to minimize those tendencies or forces A hed i ht hs Benepe sl the tealse ingredient (4) 2 alums that opeate'on'the pater beyond and peshape commary tey:che kw in scence i the renewed emphasis on the importance of experiment, For ~ rmotio et oe nr of serine, Pa neva, peas shen, our knowledge of the world is socially produced. But TRE Mature of objects which determine’ their copnitive Cay beng (lh rege an Hin, apne an Sli Rei’ Jun Lo, ee BB, Reson 9p 1S72 enter 39949N999999499999999099D93097° YVV992 Should the History of Geography be X-Rated? : Telling Geography’s Story B fore not completely conditioned smeraphysical, and aesthetic concerns have conditioned che products Tc knonledge. What they deny is that this provides grounds Tor @ me al scepticism about the cognitive To my mind, ee ee x | Martin Rdwvick synthesizes matters prety well when he writes: because, for some reais : poinss 0 its ruthfulne Fe generates expectations about the world and about the cesuts of our experiments that are eealized. If this sounds suspiciously rental success, che realist reply indeed be a social construction also chim io have « morehen-rdom ‘become a commonplace ike mere insu # “The implications of these philosophical disputes or vital for any ater to aanTeact POEADNV'T Hien. For one ting, Mason. bas plaved-a bee, Sian ive debates diemsches having been cll into the witness Box © prediction,’ MeMallin writes, ‘but what might be to mex anomaly in a creative and frafal | Z S y om ve evidence for The theory of evolarion a pood lraon Over He eats since | othe acknowledge he ‘Banwin fist pu forward his version ofthe theory, there have been disputes bos sides achnonlee he a ain debates about the precise nature of the mechanisms involved, about the Signifcance of genetic mutation, about che underlying social. philosophy ‘embodied and assumed, and so on. But the theory as held today ly Darwinian for all its modifications. Surely this pr chat the ‘strony ramme’ in the sociology of knowledge legitimacely Co that the rns Pe py ach euion a, Who groped tf Who ceo.” C twa i What interests did it serve? These, however, are. precie a Historians St geography have 8 Whar is needed, therefore, iF a8 appr *s history 1 organic world. Ce Geeta war formulation, but over time such excrescencs wil } do fll justice tothe intellectual and social content # sinply be filtered out Cal Knowledge was. prodaced, The building blocks for 2 “Thi, then are some ofthe ways. in which pilnophers have responded | apy ave been arse for some time fom the Po othe tapcaltavim of the earlier eis. I is noticeable, of course that | fhazovians but the impact of their labours on historians of geography has ‘ese defenders of realism aF© quite prepared to a by its absence. ‘not to say that no efforts have urn factors have insinuated their way into scient geography’s recent historians have made piactice at mary le ls. They are only too ready to concel endeavours abreast of the philosophical tides. % Roy Bhar ‘Reale io W.F. Ryu, EJ. Browne a8 Rey n Medio ad Hiner! Ey the \ ta Colca for he Phos 2, \ es forthe ilesophy of Skene, 2 cy Senseo sh Natal Wal p224 Should the History of Geography be X-Rated? $e rrareb ly be Rated GEOGRATHY'S New BlOcRAPHERS this newfangled how the concept has been. She sons of ‘paradigm’ spor- 30D, oy term, I want t0 pause briefly to Xue oS?" deployed within the di wero red by geography’s observer ~Oiie of the earliest geographical rchearsals of the paradigm schema occurred in Hagget and Cheriey’s preface 10 their Models m Geography.” is stage ~ in 1957 ~ their endorsement of Kuhnian principles was sim regional geography ting 2 new ‘nid! ® paradigm’. Since tha initial fitation with the Kuhnian model, geographers ‘ave Temained fascinated by the promise ofa paradigm-reconszucted wat ‘raphy. For some the intention was largely prescriptive; for otters it wes ly historical. Lele needs to be said about the former group tion of the Kuhnian perspective was propagandist purpose. For them the paradigm seemed co 4 flag for rallying. the troops. Hagget and wotion to advocate 2 mathematically based 9s- ‘ems approach; Berry appealed fora sytemsshoned decision-making revl tion; Haney drew on Kuhn's notion of cits’ to advance a pos methodology.” The deails of these (and other similar eases) nel nor be reviewed ‘ung ho spirit of ti- portrayed the mege- history of science. Such promotional hoopla, however, does not exhaust the advocates of geographi that some of geography’s Key to unlocking the historical apparent from even a cursory survey ardipns and the New Geota Model in Gengraphy (London: Mechus. 1967), 1 Feopl, Paradigms and “Progee™ D. R, Stoddart (ed), Geozraphy,leiogy and Socal Conor Och, Fp. 9196, Telling Geography's Story 2 diverse ranges of paradigm ca ‘cived of the soca i Hartshome, and Johnston, though singly suspicious of Kuhn’s relevance for geography, none ted some half dozen di matrices; Martin, focusing ‘on geography in the United States, spotted no fewer than five different paradigms, some of which phuralism’ that for the period from 1957 ly seer related leas even by the slightest fa first flush of paradigm enthus measured consideration of Kuhn's relev ick and fast. Yet what is remarkable is that, as Andrew Mair asturely observed, even among these tities the favour of Kuhn's wor . The Kuhnian ghost, it seems, is proving rather hard to exorcize from of geography Whatever the internal conceptual Kahn's writings, and the conceptual sloppiness was imported into geographical history, there can be no benefit that a broadly s%6 Should the History of Geography be X-Rated? Telling Geograpby's Story u they are sometimes called, °D) skance of natural knowledes. inode. Advoates of the weaker x Rags oarsrtions phenomena O*m anlony al Lyon ad 0 coins each nes »Reographers\ visions of thei ly grounded, Thus Ratasl thought of the sate NANA 9 99N999999909990909909099909900 ecgaphy: Aa Hisorcal fen28 Should the History of Geography be X-Rated? ‘organism’ Davi aera 3 social world is actualy a complex ‘structure Rose says that the city ia att circumstances_in which particular metaphors aise, survive, thrive, of decline, - In DEFENCE OF SITUATED MESSINESS ‘messy contingen- re far-seaching. Let lee raphy. The idea Phy independent of historical circumstances te. it does not make much sense to ask whether a particular belie is dependent of speciic conttios, 9, I argue, it doee not make much sense of-the-natur of geography as eternally eed. Clearly what i sto be rational is different for a twelfth-censury milkia what it was to be geoaraphy in sisteenth-century England was rather differ ent from its counterpart in, #23, Jeffersonian America, Enligh France, Viewrian England, or inter-war Germany. Just as there ean only be ig, 0 too can there only be a situcted geography. For differen things co different people ifferent places ‘The task of geog- wand why pi lar_practises and procedures come to be accounted gtographically ‘Undareandng a Geet: johnston e), Geography aud she i Rescarch and Appheations, wok § (Cchexee jt Wey, 1 | | | = | I Telling Geograply’s Story ZB 2), Second, on the / wiscéry of geographical thought. To be sure, we will be interested in deve ‘opments in gographical theory and thinking, but we will always want to locate theory in social and intellectual circumstance. As with my rejection ial! geography, I shall want to speak of situated theory. And never be weong to ask of any th of an ‘es this will mean that ‘want to suggest that the geographer ‘graphic and tegional survey ~ turn 0% sion by which geographers have assertions. The cartographic and other methods of vi at in this text are it goes withour-saying . For defaing par. deter composes the ex alt= conto. What 100 fo ‘seography have engaged y of the geographical tradi veonth-century England geography was prac astrology, alchemy, and all that; no, it is rather thet geography just was part of magical discourse. Here, to separate out text from context and to explain one in terms of the other is to put asunder what was or joined together. 1 ove my phasing hese 10 Jan Golinsk The Thooy of Peace and the Pace of “Theory: Sail Approaches in the Hcy of Since’ ls 81 (1990) 72-505, 499Telling Geography's Story 31 sportant to continue to be parodied in do nor know encugh about these tra iy (with as much gusto as 1 would i) the gaps that T have both pur a> genres Un tAetie SUG en ala Als Sagptin ow aio sreaphor2 Of Myths and Maps Geography in the Age of Reconnaissance ‘The intellectual rigour of geography is often questioned nowadays by prac- ras immense sgnicsrce in the bis thought? raphy, it i all the more important Geography in the Age of Reconnaissance 3 eee seen to the emergence of modecn science. Scientific Revolision it would be neither Copers Kepler nor Neston, bt... Prince Henry che Navigator. On the face to accord a Bifeenth-centary Portuguese prince, dubbed ‘the Nevigator', by 1 Victorian biographer, yet untravlled beyond Tangier, with such am acco- wen perverse. Yet the point of Hooykeas's diagnosis late the fundamental importance of real-world experience over he ‘authority’ of the Greeks. Whether or not there was a southern the earth was fat, or whether the able were questions thot could not be resolved by rereading Aristotle they ould only be answered by honestio-goodness experience. The fact that ccgraphy has always been 2 practical science is thus of central significance fh its history, and all the more so because the triumph of experience over tuthority is seen by many as the fundamental ingredient in the emergence ‘of-experimental scence'in the West. The following Words recently penned by Bernard Cohen nicely bring out the point I am making: TEnowledge. The consequences were as revolutionary 28 only did the new method found knowledge on 2 jd thar men and women no longer had 10 juthories; they could pat any state experiment 2nd Certainly Cohen's evaluation may need to be more nuanced: sociologists of «forall the antauthoritarian rhetoric on the lips soch assumed a postion of immense ear Cohen, Revoluiow dn Sclence (Cambridge, Mase Harvard Univers Press p79.VN AAA 34 Of Myths and Maps Post-Kubnian philosophers of science have s not transparent ~ it is problematic; and his- OF science have highlighted what would now be considered non. ‘modes of dicourse for the growth of science. riumph of experience over au the modem period, geography was profoundly impl- cated in the search for practical knowledge and infected by the zeal for test received wisdom in the crucible of experience. Thus J. R. Hale was Correct to remind us that the ‘first scientific Izboratory was che world itself and O'Sullivan no less off target when he added that “the voyages of discovery were in 2 way large scale experime or disproving the Renaissance concepts inherited from the ancie For some this tunadalterated encounter with the real world lefe them br ‘cated with new knowledge: ‘Had I Prolery, Strabo, quipped the Portuguese historian of explorat (1495-1570), ‘| would put them to shame and confusion.* At least in part the story of geographical exploration therefore repre- sented ~ if only theorically ~ a concem to move fo convert cosmographical theory into cartographical ‘aims only at face value would be profoundly sense it was the replacem another. Yer for This was a wuly ‘explorers epart from saw themselves as part something that see the fifteenthcem redecessors. Indeed many of them cor ing in a historical enterprise called ‘diso tanced them from 1 adventurers and wor they saw as merely con- f the weird and wonderful pethaps not so surprising that the to deseribe both the progress of geo- sraphical exploration and breakthroughs. Even today the ‘metaphor of mapmeking continues to be invoked as a means of deseribing “J. R. Hale ‘A Woild Ekewhe’, in D, Hay (ed, The Age of Ren acs and Hain, 19675 Dan OSullvan, The Age of Dscersy 106 ey Yorke Longman, 1964p 3. * Quoted in O'Sulvan, Age of Dicovery, p77 Geography in the Age of Reconnaissance 35 * attempts to get a handle on the world and of social scientists ape ale muliformity. Stephen Toulmi, for exam- pic, devotes a whole chapter to unscrambling the tltionship between theo- fies and maps, and speaks of th ane of nature as & means of fring oe vay around” phenomena and of ‘recognising where on the map’ of knowl- objec of study belongs.” And yer if the desire vo por rearing into what Boorsin cals che "mos. promising words ever writ onthe maps of fama now. er iota anki ss. divin feb the rags of corey a i at for he enti enterprise more generally, the achievements were far from purely cognitive. For a we will presently see the whele enterprise was imprege nated with non-scientific assumptions and to these ‘context contexts, cof geography, ‘myth’ has performed a crucial Trae a nuneie in which sue eer of and accordingly is an expression of the eollec- ‘age through rendering ‘intellectually and socially enced as incoherence.” Myths fre= re and provide patterns In the unfolding narra role? In its broadest terms the cosmic order exo of cence (London: Herbie, sles adopt be metaphor of Man's Search to Know bie Wood and David N. Livingson, ‘Meaning tvough ‘Absesetin: of mera Ge36 Of IS Me f Mga end Mes Ine Age of Reconnaissance a” has proved to be an infemally stubborn Aurara, ascribes mately intertwined with the f co of the modern E In the history of geographical expl alee ical exploration, such fable-lore pla of a double-edged sword. On the one hand there ee op : es vin consol dan hi sk fo he oe Of the Tred of ae a me nt svoentet with reports of headless me | and women wih eos mets o eden Ad et he a int ab iigine naan aoe | ar pel the | aul sem ro be the root from wh re forcign travel. the inclination of che heavenly in the case of Henry the ® production of geographical a piewe with a host of non-scientific incre. fn he was cert th Columbus and Cortés, for example, a rte was gees than cher cele misionary 264 07 Te ld, Fr ochers igi tect surpassed boeh ory and acquisitive eee spretion for overscas Yovaging, so much so that the yae Jy been regarded as 2 continuation of the cr sades, And this $e remind us that while chere were significant links tates oyaing andthe embryonic ‘cies’ sii, SY Wet neither ‘Many ofthe voragers were thoroughly practical 0 the workd of Renaissance scholarship. Bees, early modem science flourished best in those PaO such as England and Hollend thot al dis Eneties. And yet the explorers’ very concern with sr rrord, wich the concrete rather than the abstract; the new rather than the old, jn the commercial of new markets, his ae extent of, Moorish power in Africas rps and his\ commitment co the missionary @MerPriss ‘rides by noting that over and above all these Was smotiva ich all the others proceeded: and thi that the Canadian interior was the ian interior was the home of a the ane sean of he Kngdom" See ard myth abstractions — have thus long been bound rogeth the hiscory of geor Henry the Navigator himself. Cer cance Portugal on a 2 Geshe roel on of orl ad Boe eo on fra tc, ino ey th ti riculacly the Venetian Cadamosto ~ had succeeded in poring the cas of Af at Fas sf south a Sera Lene rane ic when he affemed that whe new scence. it was this sprit that brought T peoples, and thereby challenged the assum “ancients. And it is well ro remem knowledge they procaged was gathered at seat ‘often had to be undergone. On earth was round, thoxt fresh food | cost. Unspeakable } the voyage that gave practical demons dr water, many died of scurvy, and sailors were hr bad withered to power and swarmed with worms a sold for half a ducat pies” TE the geographical knowledge he Chri of he cee nd Cogn of Gite Haka Se 7 Voyage Aron the World a de 52, 1979), 485 Ris of the voyages of discovery was ordinarily sens SAINI)38 Of Myths and Maps advanced at great personal cost, its production was no less dependent on numerous social factors" By the early fifteenth cencury, for example, Europe was already undergoing rapid economic developm commercial capitalism. Great international bai of these economic changes were two-way. ‘were expensive commodities and finance le the economic backing for exploration; rot have embarked on his frst voyage had consortium of Castilian and Genoese underwrite the costs. On the other hand dl coin brovghi with it the necessity for locating deposits and thereby 1 motivation for sending men to wealth was thus both eanse and condition of geographical These economic developments, married co che demand for labour in the aftermath of the Black Death, soon expressed i trade. Whether for use at home, on shi chant, in the Far East. The lack of refsigeration together appetites of what Braudel calls ‘carnivorous Europe’ only helped to rein- force a search that from time to time reached manic pro “Everything depended on Europe. And yet the oceanic voyages undertaken during the fifteenth een- tucy just simply could nor have been orchestrated a century before. For the fifteenth century wes a period of intense and imaginative advance in ship- Geography in the Age of Reconnaissance » ips vended co follow two ding technology. By and lavge, European ships cended veer, one northern European, the ater Meeranean, The norte broad, and generally not tery thancenvrable, What farther com of squate sail these certainly made Single-Masted Lateen Catteck Figure 21. Feentr-centery ships0 Of Myths and Maps were fited edge to edge. It was a much and used fatemn rigging ~ an Arabi laced to a long yard hoisted obliquely toc was the vese! Prince Henry despatched on his recon there were problems with the caravels as well. Latcen-tigged sh far larger crews than cogs of comparable cargo tonnage: the si problems of both cogs and carav ‘most common of which was the c rigged ship with a lateen on the If developments in shipbuilding were at once 2 requirement and a result of the exploration experience, 0 too were the ars of pilotage and naviga tion, Pilotge, or the knowledge by sight of capes, rivers, and ports, was of intrade of any shipmester worthy of the nan. On the cther hand, grand navigation, as Michiel Coignet called implies, there was for long knowledge impinging on navi And this astronomical obser : at sea, Rather they ne of deadreckoning: simply estimating the cof a ship by calculating che length, speed, and direction of its daily after the Portuguese brought together astronomers to deal with the problem that the idea of idle ofthe eighteenth cenew. fered @ handsome prize of £20,000 ie at sea.” Indeed in 1714 the for anyone who ‘could dis ° Quocd in Pay, Age of Recosisance,p. 3. ° Qaned in Haar Brown, The Wich of Src (Caries Cambie Unie Press, 1986), p. 24. # a - DSS Geography in the Age of Reconnaissance 4 snow clear tha the geographical knowledge which was accumulated using the period ofthe ‘Reconnaissance’, s Parry describ gent on a host of contextual acters: conomie, fo on: But before we turn to the content of to recall thatthe science of geography as then und ineerest in exploration. OF key importance here was Proleimy's Geography into Latin in 1410. This was truly a Renaissance Scholarship, ni least because Polemy had devised a system of inates ~ in effect latitude and longitude - by which any ofthe globe could be identified. The new availabilty ny, and the idea tha but rather © wat seriously the Parry puts it Prolemy’s ideas ‘were both st ving, and the advancement of knowledge . .. required that his theoris should first be mastered and then superseded.” The growth of geographical knowledge then, 2¢ now, depended on a thorough grasp of the classic texts a5 the fist step roward transcending them. ACHIEVEMENTS of cartography and navigation. A brief perusal of these accomplishments ht geography's strategic role in the evolution of Western culture. The voyaging vent he Porugucse are the most natural place to el Boorssin puts it pechaps a “Tongs ‘natural advantages the translation of foreign dreams into reality hold and a number of private sRogaevess oao 5 e6O0e 6665 095922 Of Myths and Maps nobles and merchants. Whatever the mainsprings of their logistic ents asm (and we have considered what some of these might have been in the case of Prince Hem feats were unmistakable. They built up the rudiments of 2 navigational research (ohether at Sagres or not is mach disputed); they despatched mariners to chart che coast of Aftics in the hope o ing? Cape Bojadox, the seeming edge of the w were eventually rewarded with success in 1434 wl found it behind him, In Henry accomplishments of his most celebrated navigator, Cadamoste, whose voy: ages during the mid-1450s resulted in the discovery of the Cape Verde Islands and whose records revealed ravishing new botanical and anthropo- local specimens th search for a sea passage to India, wi 8. In 1487 he set out and on 3 February 1488 he in Mossel Bay having been driven by an only-too-auspicious around the Cape, ‘what could yer singly Dias christened it Cape of Good Hope, Geography in the Age of Reconnaissance 8 i Cao 1485 seeree Covilha 1487 =+— Dias 1487 —— Da Gama 1497 romised che way t0 In if Docan, but his men lost courage and the Meet ten, They were welcomed with open Vasco da Gama to go all the way er Manucl 1 in lade. This he id something that would change the sent every available ship and man (0 the Indian Ocean, eventually taking Malacca in dby came to dominate ‘end opening up trade4 Of Myths and Maps links with Siam, the Spice Islands, and China. For a century and a half the Portagucse monopoly of Indian Ocean sea trade was to go unchallenged. bring is tion of young males. Nor est course of action iendly commercial rela- by birth, itis with Christopher ust begin. The broadest contours fevements are, of couree fami inverpreting his tlt the hry of gograpicl discovery has proved to be anottiousy ticklish problem. The standard view is that he was « 4 ew route to Asia by sai ial backing of Spein, et out the discovery of Americe. The received | It has been suggested, was a Jewish convert secking a new home for perse some have speculated that he was rally « secet agent rnaintain that he was actually headiog for the cause he had gleaned information on the New an sources. Although these theories have been has now been established that he was bo that in August 1492 he set sail from Spain with he Spanish sovereigns addressed 10 the grand khan of China On his first voyage, he reached San Salvad encountered an indigenous population only too willing to coo ndly for theit own good. Colum imphal Spain quickly led to negoiations with the papacy to procure ‘monopoly on the navigation and setlement of the new hinds which reeueed in the famous Everything to the west of the line, wh: leagues to the wes of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands, was to be granted to Spain fo the cast was Portuge’s share, The Porcuguese, however, would hare year earlier had been murdered by natives peshed to the it sable ake need Cinta 3 Ei gmc ‘ape a om na by the low level of profi that che distant posts had yielded.” He bs i mised a gold mine’, Boorstin writes, ‘and only found a Ma es On his third excu ‘Columbus had to take on convicts ba Lee ly reduced flcet, and then the news of Vasco da Gama’s Trista Fe ed 106 ore te al real of te decor simak ake caryoantctiay eae si and pomp seven: Hr oberens ovatus scorn epnae and his detailed knowledge of the = cu Seal eomomns = mies spe margins of various contemporary geographic tate ‘Mund? and the travels of Marco Polo, demonstrate oak at bene unl ty eet! ed ene were actually more accurate than for be sas prow to eerste the 2 ‘Columbus, Christophe’, Diconay of Scie Biography, supplemet, p. 87-5. foorsin, Dicxere, p15 499N999999919999999999- YA9N990909090Geography in the Age of Reconnaissance ” ices inthe eenploy of the § da nhs vss hanged the rentine businessman, Ameri Dinah sph now andor Poros rape, tu pain of he New rl afer i Len lp in te ddan et Min serfs tao Anal ac Geos eras) taken epee eal be caro ane 0 kag of ome 800 leagues which included Sgures 1 Khaldan, and A} profitably be charted. As forthe Chinese, the expe ag Pty ffcenth century wee unc tbat date probably inp isory, numbering Ales of over 300, To eit th vec in the preent contest, however, woud Be ro mali Ganecessarly, Instead T want to devote 2 few nen without whose guts and grit the geoeral impo during the ae of reconnaissance would never have Deg) We ie aoa ie of the average able-bodied saan inthe be fifteenth ana snecrth centuries must have een anything but pleasant Conditions ieee rerwded and always cramped. The commanding ofr, of f own cabin aft and other officers had bunk beds 25 f the main decks but course, bad his Sides of the vessel in the steerage section ‘imply had to make do with the deck Shey would have to shake down on the ballast below they wet cambered wo allo warer to ran off eareely made thins beter, the , pork pickled in brine, sardines Fresh water was a perem ‘casks and there ed, and often the casks had Sand was only too often used impressed, and so, like many another, Maj bi many another, Magellan turned to §} = wth oe ais andy Octobe fo folowing a ae dy eco and miroetonty found his wap through tha beat to serve as part ballast. For the bal 10s brenght its own problems. For when lth of every dest aoe aay down it simply clogged in the sand and earned frich then rolled with the ship in ‘a semi are 2* And of course rough fare, gross insan! sr frequent dzenchings in an cra of pre-warerproot clothing brought more ought scurry. A deficiency disease, curvy claimed more men cn Magellan's than social embarrassment of every sear = rash expression of solidari i ow ene hic en wee Wel seat by 150 Mac the accom: acy the conditions, there were sil jobs chat had so be done ihe an accomplished sea- ty for the crew, the cango, and the han ¢ of navigation, the ups a Unlike the captaia, the master of rman, for he had overall respon ing of the ship, The pilot and the mate were in ch sre had to sce 10 provisions and various stores Lite lowes, while anchors, cables rigging, and so om were the hands of the ase in or bos’, Every ship carried a carpenter ~ 2 thorough} doit- pata man wih hed to anderake most of dhe epics His ‘ils were ers who helped, teenth cent Pizarro who ol Boorstin’s words, to double the w« Men like Cortés who conquered the es ated the Inca civilization ach Tobin: Cabce wi I ition for Spain need to be recalled, Drake who circumn: exploits of t vere! Newfoundland in 187 and svigued the obo catay ht, The neviaionl ney, Ageof Recon 2 Hege Lhe teed on cae thi p74 ‘Arabs in the person of bs in the person of Ibn Majid, who continued a tradi | j8 Of Myths and Maps essential, as were those of the caulker, whose the vessel was watertight, and the cooper, wh good shape. Lives depended on the any specialized tasks like these, every sailor had to take his turn on watch, Ships’ companies worked a two-watch system which changed every four hours, and during che shift decks would be scrubbed, he ship pumps rigging adjusted. Here again necessity was the mother of invention, for the ed for accurate timekeeping kept producers of sand:alasses abreast of the latest techniques. Half-hour glasses were the norm and they were therefore tured ight times per watch. The best were manufactured in bulk in Venice and sold to ship chandler all over Europe. Human backbone, however, was not the only thing needed for frui seafaring: keeping up with the newest navigational technology also ‘The practice of dead ceckoning, as we have sleeady seen, wes common prot cedure. But as more experience was gleaned and more thought exclusively ected to nautical problems, new advances were made.” Here, perhaps re than anywhere else save for the art of cartography, science, eechnol: ay, accumulated lore, and naked experience were bound together. And yet the results were far-reaching, to put it indced D. W. Waters goes so far as to daim ion and science are the producs basicly of ship-botne trade... made practicable by the are and science of navigation ~ by the use made by scamen of the means provided by scien ther to conduct ships about the seas Ik was during the sixteenth century, for exarn books ~ began to be printed in larze numbers f various tide tables and they wete obviously useless. Thus the need for accurately plotting the whereabouts of some new island or stretch of coast became a real desiderarum. Dead reckoning would help; but the postion of the stars, particularly the Pole Star, was altogether moze reliabl this problem on land was one thing; in heaving seas i was ied versions of the quadrant and Geography in the Age of Reconnaissance 8 seaman’'s quedrant was really a half protractor messuring angles of 1-90", ‘a plumb line steached to the af in stormy weather and so the medieval astrolabe was rmodified again and again for use at sea. Its ourer edge was divided into degrees while its movable central pointer was rotated to align with sun or stats the angle again told the user his latitude, OF course sailing by latitude produced new problems: chief among these were the need to follow true north rather than magnetic north and the need to compile various astro- rnomical cables and nautical manuals giving the.reading of solar declination imckesping, for example. From 1530, Pret improvement in cinekeping such as the giking of watch parts against corrosion, introduced in the mid- errhp), ate Oe le oe (roles oad Yel peg he reconnaissance undertaking. As Skelton observes, maps which che explores is hopes and mi is adi Ti char sng uented routes. As the originally developed as a guide to travelers along frea limics of the world known to Europeans were extended, the critical effort = wid, p95 © On se developments in eregraphy 39999999999 99999997 Y99N909N99N90909 5# Of Myths and Maps of cartographere came to be concentrated at its periphery, on the uncertain boundary between knowledge and ig ‘Maps with rather different purposes ~ expressing religious representa tions of the world ~ were common by the fitcenth century. The eighth cen Map, the tenth-century Anglo-Saxon map of the as far east es the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, the thirteenth-certury Psalter Map ~ a citcular or ~ and the Hereford ‘Mappamundi are among the es of such early raphy. The purpose of the mappiemundi was mult-dimensioneL, Geographical ace was certainly. not their a5 Jerusalem-centred as is comm: marily di they symbolically projected onto a ge the Christin religion — Creation, phical base the major events in ion, and Judgement, and as such cee ic renderings of Christian cosmography were different from chete medieval world-delincations, and alto- gether more practical. These were the portolanos or portolan charts thar were made by seamen for seamen. As Tony Campbell observes: ‘The Medieval Mappaemundi are the cosmographies of thinking landsmen, By * portolan charts preserve the Mediterranean sailore’ firsthand of their own sea.” At frst they focused on the Mediterranean zone and although initially they were so extensively revised and refined as co surpass the maps of the learned geographers. Typically these charts were covered with humb lines, thet is, straigh rection of winds intersecting in compass roses, and were often gathered er in portolan atlases of up to a dozen sheets. By the sixteenth cen- were several famous chart-naking families who produced works of technical excellence and stunning aesthetic appeal. Even allowing for the contingent nature of what would with remarkable prec receded before ‘solid geograpl ‘would be mistaken to conceive of their history in ‘achieving cartograph rcus Martellus German 's voyage around the Cape ‘ oth portrayed the Columban discoveries and da Gams expe- incident with the beginnings of the age of reconnaissance, moreover, wat th reducovery ofthe work of Clave Peleny, che infaence of hi yy would be hard to exaggerate, fori ee the cartographic enter ‘Throughout the next two centuries spabiy function charcer joing age, but also for the mathemacical proficiencies and pre met were ofa te sii of he acomplia gr drasghtman, Many of the reat savant ofthe Renate Tike Leonard dda Vinci and Peter Apian, thas interested a the ccs ad of caography, But hee were bers who pasted canogsarhy more si glemindedly. One of the most celebrated was the Belgian map ml Gatardos Mereaos, born in Flanders in 1512, He bacme an aie iss iment and globe makes, and an expert engraver producing highly accuse saps of Europe i she 1545 and 15505. Ba wa in 1569 date po- duced a milestone in eatgrapic ior. This was his work! map dust on the projection that bers is name. He all he compas rections and rhumbs are depicted in straight lines ~ a trick involving the le of the globe, Mercator achieved his objective by sys i the distance between the parallels from the equator vas a case of scientific distortion for specific purposes. He quatter of a century and by the time of his in 1594 he had issued the first two pat in Anewerp of German paren cof maps and then became the remarkable 87-name-oag inves2 Of Myths and Maps drew up, sensitized him to the shortcomings in contemporary 1570 he produced his own Theatr lingering traces of the Prolemaic cosmology, it has long been said to have herakded @ new carcographic era in which every effort would be made to “found the knowledge of the earth not on the writings of the ancients but on first-hand information and scientific investigatio le of concepeual and jectory needs some further said just at this point inaugurated daring the age of reconnai excelsis Paul Theroux’s reminder that ‘cartography, pleasing of the courage, the his underscanding the most distant places.’ Now wences of the voyages of geographical discover sess of Europeans in the fifteenth and sixteenth ce ign, ws, and his capacity for singular journeys 2 Penrose, Trvel and Discovery inthe Reno, p26 Pal ing the Wosi’, The Hongkong end Shanghai Banking Corpraion Geography in the Age of Reconnaissance 8 “Theatrum Obie Terrarum ‘Sela, Reproduced by kind per engraved TIP Li Art Library, Oxford4 Of Myths and Maps Geography inthe Age of Reconnaissance 3s Pacts However difficule it might be to figure out precisely what we ought to mean by the notion of an age of ‘discovery’ (could a fifteenth-centary Italian ‘is cover’ China?i, and however fluid the definitions of key geogeaphical terms in the late medieval period (for long. enovg! * the imps From the New World came potatoes and peanuts, tomatoes and turkeys, kidney beans and maize, and in return it received wheat, poultry, and domesticated pigs. Other less plea surable things were also exchanged: the conquistadors gave avray measles, and got back syphilis. And of course tobacco spread like wildfire once ‘spice orgy’ for c from the East both the Portuguese nthe trade. least for a period after lover north-west Europe; by of the Venice price. And Lisbon quickly became 2 major centre da Gama's voyage ~ for spice distribution 1508 the cost of pepper in Lishon was although chey were noc widely consumed until the seventeenth cencu fee came co Europe from Arabia, cea from China, and chocolace from Mexico, At the other end of the social scale, time to time, shipped in to feed the po ‘The geographic ; ean powers, of course, the Portuguese equally deserve reacted ad ie indies would few words on the forcunes of the Spanish inthe New World must sufce o illustrate the methods of managing 2 sixteenth. “The Meaning of “Disgvery” century overseas empire, Quite obsiously repercussions were felt both in he New Spain and at home in Spain itself, The Spanish, in the shape of shed a permanent dominion in ‘Spanish’ America and all ro0 efficiently ~ dise posed of chiefs and priests, Thereby they easily won the sul the ways of servitude. But the Spat faker over unchenged. AS new immigrancs dribbled in ‘here grew up, beside the Indian economy based on communal agriculture” according ro Parry, ‘a new and charactristically Spanish economy, whose principal and ost Iuerative occupations were stock raising and. silver tvas from the rapid success of the stock ranches thar ca Toe for large-scale mining projects, which in turn created a demand for Jocal manval labour. This was not easily procured, and the indigenous Indians had to be foreed into service, The wo sin these min~ ing camps were the norm, infection 8 fi disease raged th: Mexieo alone ~ from eleven population declined dramati 1 to swo and a hal As. for administration, each province was in the. semi wands of a governor, semi-autonomous because, while he ¢ of a viceroy, he was forever checked up on by judges monarchs who never had complete ators. Spain favoured 2 policy of mm, a bureaucratic regime in which the judiciary held strong centraliza pride of place. By 1550 this overseas empire, encompas the coast of Brazil, had brought great international prestige to Sps bet it was only by thar date chat the New World investments began to pay, as gold, and more especially silver, began to float back from transeta mines, American revenuc, 0 ing. sor tvhere between a fith and a quarter of the total by the end of Phillip Portugal, the long-term effects were enfecbling. The izing on its new-found fortunes economy’, buying from abroad save for failed to manufacture (Of course the new geographical knowledge of the fifteenth and sixteenth ry Ase of Recoraizanes,p- 228. ivan, Age of Dinceuery, 7856 Of Myths and Maps centuries brought more than exotic merchandise, fresh reserves of precious rmecals, and bureaucratic innovation ro western Europe; it brought an ‘unprecedented intellectual challenge to the complacent consciousness of the Old World. To be sure, this psychological impact can timated. Only a small proportion of the books focused on the newly opened up Asian or American be naive to see the voyages of exp carsor of the Scientific Revolution he recognition of the supe over classical authority ~ to recurn to the theme with which began ~ did embody a methodological prin enterprise. of course, there was 2 theological furry over the discovery of alien peoples. Whete did they come from, and how was theit existence to be accommodated t0 the Mosaic chronicles of creation? Soon problems li these resulted in the revival of an ancient heresy ~ Preadamism, the belief human beings had existed before Adam." Some wondered if they had ped the reaches of Noah's food, ow they had migeaed from the centre of creation in the Old World; still others worried about their teriological status ~ were they human, had they souls did they need eom- mn? Many answers were forthcoming. In some instances indigenous Peoples were forcibly Christianized and thc local religions obliteratedy in others ‘pagan’ licrgies were given an ecclesiastical gloss the isfy conqueror and conquered alike. In New Spain, for ex dotal ritual that evolved ~ ‘was an attempt to me: ely los mother was overlain with and indigenous ites were sacralized by the ly tempered Christian vocabulary. Whatever the st ics deployed, the very presence of ‘exotic’ tribal customs exerted 2 lu fescination. Who would not be held captive by tales of temple with haman blood as heathen priests carried out the grotesque cercmony of an Moa from Heresy to Onkodony', 4-66; and in The Preademic Theory and the ‘American Philsephisl Soc, 192) (lade ‘Agcof Recomaisionce,p. 23 ; j i i | j | Geography in the Age of Reconnaissance a tnanualy ripping our the hearts of prisoners of war by the chousand, and II as worship t0 Aztec gods? The ed an imaginative worl! brought, as we shall now sae challenges to the understanding of ‘nature’, it no less confounded standard conceptions of “human nature. Confronting America was as much a moral event as an economic or sci- entific one, ‘ new era in the history of ir very eyes: Feom the outset it wore, it was inaccurate, The very existence of America exposed che errors of Ptolemy's geography; its new species showed the deficiencies in Aristotle's taxonomy. Inthe long 1un this encounter would transform the very categories of natural history pre- sentation. Consider one of the standard encyclopedic works cataloguing natural history specimens that were produced during che middle of the six: Konrad von Gesnet’s Historia Animaliurn which 12 4,500 pages and included the farnous woodcut of a thi- yped from Asia to Lisbon ~ reputedly by Albrecht Darer ‘The style in which the work recently been depiced story’. By this he means that ies for individual species incorporated a good deal more than jon of the animal's hat it also presented, rporated. But because these ani tions that Old World creatures VA9AVIIDIIDI DAAADIAIAAIAS38 Of Myths and Maps Geography inthe Age of Reconnaissance 9 tk their hands, he cover against the logis! ded scanned simple facts weigh more heavily chan acute reason ine 7 saan had been effected. snsformation had been accomplished, the end of the fifteenth century, 25 witnessed an explo- iowledge of faraway faunas." Small wonder that Diogo approaching the equator, was already by the fifteenth century ge; for he already knew the ancient geograph Ihe tropes were uninhabitable it was plain, as were the poe ‘were challenging the learning, of the learned. As Hooykaas pu retained a profound lov many of them tende timo sess the indebtedness of contemporary navig; FF qronorny ofthe Ancien. Others were prepare co lad the exons emi ‘continuing to revere che mathematical proficiency fof the classical writers, In 1537, for of P Geography rodem technology as human arrogance run w feckless; they lamented the decadence in Portugh ‘Gfeminate’ India; and they bemoaned the depopulation rig men drifted fret to the towns and chen from the capi of scientific cul ndoned in favour of Portuguese in order ye New World and the feats of the nation available ro a wider public. Besides, schol te ve were anxious wo spread practical knowledge to the unerered <* inert and hence precipitated the valgarization of science. W Spanich as well as Portuguese they soon realized, would sho vpn Bot above all there was the fecing thet modern discoves ng oven the glories ofthe ancient world. The French his ed in 1579 that were Prolemy to be resurrected Re geography and astron- Huguenot the sixteenth century eae sciense word. In this he was not alone. Looking back from thet in ech conury perspewive, comamentacrs could recall the intllecru Ngnibeance of the age of ceconnaiscance. AS no less 2 figure chan Fragcs sanraimed in the celebrated Novtm Orgemum which fase appeared in 1620: kane, Hannan ad the Voyages of Discovery, PV0 Of Mytbs and Maps Ee the authority of men who have been losephy, and gen phy have been exposed to our and travel, in which our times ourable 1 mankind, the narrow pibert agreed. In 1633, for example, when William Ware composed a Ficonian appendix to The Sirange and Dangerous Voyage of Captain Thoma James, n His intended Discovery ofthe North West Passage io the South Seas, he rook the opportunity to mount his case agntse conventional scholastic wisdom. He harboured no doubss, for example, that ‘the careal reading of our books of and more conduce to the improvement of had been lately thought upon.” Ariseote! Royal pass... fn science are traceable to the these, emphasis has focused on the Portuguese experience and Floren’ humanism.” As far as Portugal is concerned crucial significance is anached to ite encouragement of i math of the cataclysmic aroms that swept through Spain in the eacly 1390s, Portugal became a er Jewish-Mallorcan refugees who brought when King Joa fifteenth ce turned to Abraham Zacuto Vizinho ~ both Jewish practitioners of nautical science ~ to ‘Tradiion and the Scenic Revo Of Brith Gecaraphers, ns iene Geography in the Age of Reconnaissance a resolve the problem of determining latitude at sea. Alongside these mathe matical developments were other scientific achievements that were in pare cause and consequence of Portugal's roving adventures. Francesca Faliro smengence of modern science in Western Europe.” Columbus ed that cosmography, cartography, and astronomy were pre- Jewish occupations.” stimulus to modern science is central in the above scenario, an alternative emphasis — equally stressing the pivotal role of geography — focuses on fifeench-eentury Florence. The rediscovery of Ptolemy's tual coteries of Florence ng with rumours of Portuguese voy: imulated Toscanel and his circle to ponder the new dsta for their geographical significance. ‘The mushrooming of geographical information, not least fom Venetian teavelers, and artistic mapping soon combined with commerci stimulate scientific growth, And ic i for these reasons Goldstein malkes this Florentine geographical tradition his frst in his search for The Dawn of Modern Science’ I certainly have no intention of trying to adi peting claims. Nor do 1 mean to imply by what I have said sraphical exploration we find exposed the very roots of modem Such monistic accounts are sure 10 founder on the plural rocks of history. When Sir George Thomson observed to Reijer Hooykaas that Henry the acted as “the midwife of modern science’ he was s : “And yer for Bacon, at least, geographical ex ‘mately bound the coming of modern science. This was for Christopher Wren, In his inaugural lecture as Professor of A. 1865), pp. 9-3 Hannan andthe Voroges of Dicovery, 1S. y3a9- AR9A9a Of Myths and Maps Blect at Gresham College in 1657 ~ a body from which the Royal Society ‘would soon emerge ~ he affirmed that it was through astronomy and ‘mag- neticks' that ‘the Gates of true Science open'd, and the poor Philosophers Anaximander, Anaximenes, Leucippus, Empedocles are laugh'd at.’ But these sciences did not arrive from heaven on tables of stone; they were