Geographies of Nationhood : Cartography, Science, and Society in the Russian Imperial Baltic Hardback
by Catherine (Research Fellow, Research Fellow, School of Theology & Religious Studies, Univers Gibson
Part of the Oxford Studies in Modern European History series
Hardback
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Geographies of Nationhood examines the meteoric rise of ethnographic mapmaking in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a form of visual and material culture that gave expression to territorialised visions of nationhood.
In the Russian Empire's Baltic provinces, the development of ethnographic cartography, as part of the broader field of statistical data visualisation, progressively became a tool that lent legitimacy and an experiential dimension to nationalist arguments, as well as a wide range of alternative spatial configurations that rendered the inhabitants of the Baltic as part of local, imperial, and global geographies.
Catherine Gibson argues that map production and the spread of cartographic literacy as a mass phenomenon in Baltic society transformed how people made sense of linguistic, ethnic, and religious similarities and differences by imbuing them with an alleged scientific objectivity that was later used to determine the political structuring of the Baltic region and beyond.
Geographies of Nationhood treads new ground by expanding the focus beyond elites to include a diverse range of mapmakers, such as local bureaucrats, commercial enterprises, clergymen, family members, teachers, and landowners.
It shifts the focus from imperial learned and military institutions to examine the proliferation of mapmaking across diverse sites in the Empire, including the provincial administration, local learned societies, private homes, and schools.
Understanding ethnographic maps in the social context of their production, circulation, consumption, and reception is crucial for assessing their impact as powerful shapers of popular geographical conceptions of nationhood, state-building, and border-drawing.
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Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:288 pages, More than 50 black and white and colour images/maps
- Publisher:Oxford University Press
- Publication Date:31/03/2022
- Category:
- ISBN:9780192844323
Information
-
Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:288 pages, More than 50 black and white and colour images/maps
- Publisher:Oxford University Press
- Publication Date:31/03/2022
- Category:
- ISBN:9780192844323