Customer Reviews

Mapping an Empire: The Geographical Construction of British India, 1765-1843

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This book is quite tough going for the non-specialist. But it rewards with description of the earlier forms of map-making by plane table, the shift in perception of territory and space from the route map to the triangulated survey map. It gives strong description of history of the British East India Company through its governance and its information system- the flow of descriptive information over the administrative links between India and England. It goes several steps further in conceptual depth than The Great Arc (a more popular and accessible history of the triangulation survey phase of mapping India). The academic theorising detracts from a reading of technology and administration - but the whole book leaves a lasting impression. Place this story of growing systematisation and control through measurement and mapping against the exploits of soldiers and residents, wars and political campaigns, John Masters' great series of novels, and you get a great enlargement of vision of the eighteenth and nineteenth century subcontinent; finish up with Building The Railways of the Raj 1850-1900 [Ian J. Kerr] for another stimulating contrast of the ideologies of economic control and engineering control and development with the imaginary grids and connecting lines made real, and essential to twentieth century India.