Maps: Power, Plunder and Possession

Visiting the worlds first known map, etched into the rocks of a remote alpine hillside 3,000 years ago, Brotton explores how each culture develops its own unique, often surprising way of mapping. As Henry VIIIs stunning maps of the British coastline from a birds eye view show, they were also used to exert control over the world. During the Enlightenment, the great French Cassini dynasty pioneered the western quest to map the world with greater scientific accuracy, leading also to the British Ordnance Survey. But these new scientific methods were challenged by cultures with alternative ways of mapping, such as in a Polynesian navigators map which has no use for north, south and east. As scientifically accurate map-making became a powerful tool of European expansion, the British carved the state of Iraq out of the Middle East. When the British drew up Iraqs boundaries, they had devastating consequences for the nomadic tribes of Mesopotamia.