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Scotland Mapping the Nation

by Christopher Fleet, Charles W.J. Withers and Margaret Wilkes

ISBN: 9781841589695
Imprint: Birlinn
Publication Date: Sep 2011
Format: Hardback
Price: £30.00
Stock Status: in stock

Foreword by Micheal Anderson

'A real treasure of a book' - Alexander McCall Smith in The Mail on Sunday

'A well crafted message is told of maps, Scotland, and Scottishness, and the connections between them; of how maps helped shape the nation as seen from within and without; and of how maps worked ideologically and in the everyday lives of the Scots to shape identity' - Journal of Historical Geography

Whilst documents and other written material are obvious resources that help shape our view of the past, maps too can say much about a nation’s history. This is the first book to take maps seriously as a form of history, from the earliest representations of Scotland by Ptolemy in the second century AD to the most recent form of Scotland’s mapping and geographical representation in GIS, satellite imagery and SATNAV.  Compiled by three experts who have spent their lives working with maps, Scotland: Mapping the Nation offers a fascinating and thought-provoking perspective on Scottish history which is beautifully illustrated with complete facsimiles and details of hundreds of the most significant manuscript and printed maps from the National Library of Scotland and other institutions, including those by Timothy Pont, Joan Blaeu and William Roy, amongst many others.

Chris Fleet studied Geography at the University of Durham. Since 1994 he has worked at the Map Library at the National Library of Scotland, with particular responsibilities relating to digital mapping. Charles W.J. Withers is Professor of Historical Geography at the University of Edinburgh. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Historical Society, and the Royal Society of Arts. In 2012 he was awarded the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, a Royal Medal approved by the Queen, for the encouragement and development of historical and cultural geography. Margaret Wilkes previously head of the Map Division at the National Library of Scotland. In 2001 she was awarded The Royal Scottish Geographical Society’s Bartholomew Globe for services to Scottish cartography.

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