Saved By A Projection

I just had to share this wonderfully imaginative piece of science fiction from xkcd comics.

Using map projections to alter our perception of geography is an old trick.

Early Chinese History Told Through Maps And Poetry

I am really enjoying Jerry Brotton's A History Of The World In 12 Maps. One richly rewarding chapter is on early Chinese map making traditions and inevitably you end up learning quite a bit of history as well.

The Song dynasty (907- 1276 AD) struggled with keeping the empire unified and intact and faced particularly strong challenges from the Jurchen Jin a confederacy of Tungusic tribes from northern Manchuria. In the middle of the 12th century the Song were forced to sign a peace treaty with the Jurchen Jin ceding to them nearly half their northern territory.

Subsequent imperial maps drawn up by the Song never showed this division. Rather, an idealized geography that the Song kept dreaming of based on earlier classical texts like Yu Gong, that of a unified empire to which foreign barbarian rulers paid tribute was portrayed. Using maps as a tool for political propaganda is an old trick! 

What maps did not depict though, poetic license did.

This beautiful passage from the book:

Poetry describing maps either side of the traumatic division of the Song also captures their power to first acknowledge, and then lament the loss of territory. Writing more than 100 years earlier, the ninth century Tang poet Cao Song describes 'Examining " The Map of Chinese and Non Chinese Territories"':

With a touch of the brush the earth can be shrunk;
Unrolling the map I encounter peace.

The Chinese occupy a prominent position;
Under what constellation do we find the border areas!

On this occasion the almost meditative act of unrolling the map and seeing a unified Chinese dynasty at its center evokes emotions of security and assurance. Later Southern Song poets used a similar conceit, but with very different emotions. Writing in the late twelfth century, the celebrated Lu You (1125-1210) lamented:

I have been around for seventy years, but my heart has 
remained as it was in the beginning, 
Unintentionally I spread the map, and tears come gushing forth.

The map is now an emotive sign of loss and grief, and perhaps a 'template for action', a call to unite what has been lost.

On The Consequences Of A One To One Scale Map

 My Book Shelf # 30

I have just started reading A History Of The World In Twelve Maps by Jerry Brotton, an exploration of influential maps through our history that shaped the way we viewed the world and in turn how our cultural habits, religious beliefs and political power equations of the day shaped decisions of how and what to represent. Each period in our history argues Jerry Brotton gets the map it deserves. It promises to be a really interesting read.

Early in the introduction I came across this passage on the use of scale:

The only map that can ever completely represent the territory it depicts would be on the effectively redundant scale of  1:1. Indeed, the selection of scale, a proportional method of determining a consistent  relationship between the  size of the map and the  space it  represents is closely related  to the problem of abstraction, and has been  a rich source of pleasure  and  comedy for many writers. In Lewis Carroll's Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893), the other worldly character Mein Herr announces that 'we actually made a map of the country, on a scale of  a mile to the mile!' When asked if the map has  been used much,  Mein Herr admits, 'It has never been spread out'. and 'the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole  country,  and shut out the  sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does  nearly as well.' The conceit was taken a stage further by Jorge Luis Borges,  who, in his one-paragraph short story 'On Rigour in Science' (1946), recast Caroll's account  in a darker key. Borges describes a mythical empire where the art of mapmaking  had reached such a level of detail that 

the Colleges of Cartographers set up a Map of the Empire which had the size of the Empire itself and coincided with it point by point. Less Addicted to the  Study of Cartography, Succeeding Generations understood that this widespread Map was useless and with Impiety they abandoned it to the Inclemencies of the Sun and of the Winters. In the deserts of the west some mangled Ruins of the Map lasted on, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in the whole Country there are no other relics of the Disciplines of Geography.

Borges understood both the timeless quandary and potential hubris of the mapmaker: in an attempt to produce a comprehensive map of their world, a process of reduction and selection must take place. 

Wonderful passage! (but i wonder not having  read the story -if the map was as large as the empire, where did they keep it? :) )  If you want a shorter summary of the book do listen to Jerry Brotton on BBC Pop-Up Ideas podcast -  Mapping History. It is an enjoyable talk.

Now,  back to reading!