Mapping an Empire : The Geographical Construction of British India, 1765-1843

Rating:
Summary: The Silly Route to India
Review: Ths book will best be appreciated by fans of deconstructionism. Really an essay on the philosophy of power, expropriation, and image, this book took a potentially riveting topic, with ample documentation, and presented it in a dreary way. The opportunities to make this an enlightening delight were thrown away, presumably in the name of academic rigor. The use of figures is excellent, although an inadequate relief from the relentlessly scholastic text. Author Matthew Edney debates Edward Said, et al, in the precise role map-making had in the subjugation of peoples. Both Said and Edney agree that self-delusion was a by-product of colonial research; Edney argues that the Britons were less successful as researcher-controllers than Said might claim, because of imperfect understanding. This is silly: the economic motivations for colonizing India are obvious; if you want to colonize a place, you need excellent maps. Edney spends 450pages ignoring that, and probing instead European fixations on gathering knowlege as if it were a category of penis-envy. Accounts of early geodesy and cartography are mostly bureacratic; there's very little science here. Unfortunately, this wonderful topic will need to wait for a better book.

Rating:
Summary: The Silly Route to India
Review: Ths book will best be appreciated by fans of deconstructionism. Really an essay on the philosophy of power, expropriation, and image, this book took a potentially riveting topic, with ample documentation, and presented it in a dreary way. The opportunities to make this an enlightening delight were thrown away, presumably in the name of academic rigor. The use of figures is excellent, although an inadequate relief from the relentlessly scholastic text. Author Matthew Edney debates Edward Said, et al, in the precise role map-making had in the subjugation of peoples. Both Said and Edney agree that self-delusion was a by-product of colonial research; Edney argues that the Britons were less successful as researcher-controllers than Said might claim, because of imperfect understanding. This is silly: the economic motivations for colonizing India are obvious; if you want to colonize a place, you need excellent maps. Edney spends 450pages ignoring that, and probing instead European fixations on gathering knowlege as if it were a category of penis-envy. Accounts of early geodesy and cartography are mostly bureacratic; there's very little science here. Unfortunately, this wonderful topic will need to wait for a better book.