Making Space: Revisioning the World, 1475-1600

Space, Place and Society

by John Rennie Short

The cosmos was bound in a sphere; the world was gridded and plotted, the seas navigated, and the land surveyed. Spatial practices were codified, a spatial sensitivity was created and a cartographic literacy was established in the increasing use of maps and the creation of a cartographic language for new mappings of the world, state, and city. Short establishes that such spatial revisioning is connected to the promotion of commercial and national interests. Developments in navigation, for example, were often encouraged and promoted both by the state and by merchant companies. Surveying was closely connected to the rising cost of land and to the increasing commodification of agriculture. The continuous price rise of land in the sixteenth century was an important factor in the rise of spatial practices of mapping and surveying. In addition, he highlights the role of the occult practices in the new spatial sciences. Astrology and alchemy were as important as astronomy and geometry. The cosmographers of the sixteenth century encompassed a wide arc of intellectual endeavors.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2004

About the author

Prof. John Rennie Short is the Professor of Public Policy in the Department of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), USA.

He received an MA in Geography from the University of Aberdeen in 1973 and a PhD in 1977 from the University of Bristol.

He has been the Professor of Public Policy at UMBC since 2005, having previously held positions at the University of Bristol, the University of Reading and Syracuse University.

He currently writes for a number of audiences, including The Conversation.