On Friday, May 4, 1906, Bruno Domann left his desk at the Perthes publishing house in Gotha carrying travel accounts, maps and instruments. However, he did not take the materials home in order to finish maps for the new printing run of the Stieler’s Hand-Atlas or Petermann’s Geographische Mittheilungen. Domann was on his way to the inn Zum Schützen, where...
Location: Centre for Transcultural Studies, Gotha Research Campus Dates: 24th–25th November 2022. This conference will explore cartography and the construction and contestation of territoriality in Asia from the late eighteenth to the twentieth century. In particular we seek to answer the question of how ideas of territoriality were cartographically produced, circulated and interpreted within Asia and between Europe and Asia....
Often this blog has alluded to the networks of the Justus Perthes Publishing House, which were nurtured and maintained by its leading spokesmen during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. August Petermann, a central figure in the history of the company and its leading cartographer from 1854 to 1878, fostered, systematized and institutionalized much of the global outreach of the...
Digitizing Maps: Availability vs. Authenticity? In the third and final part of our editorial, we will engage with the opportunities and challenges of the digitization of historical maps. Since we decided to publish the maps of Africa and Asia of the Perthes Collection online, this short article ends with our reasoning of their benefits, and how the presentation of the...
About the Perthes Collection, Its History and Artefacts While last week we pondered about the implications of research on maps, their unique value and specific histories, this week’s entry will concentrate on the archive, at which our project is located, specifically: The Perthes Collection. This collection is relatively unknown among historians in general but enjoys a solid reputation among a...
Why digitize historical maps of Africa and Asia? “Pics or it didn’t happen!” has become a proverb of internet culture in cases when someone demands visual—specifically, photographic—proof of seemingly unrealistic claims. Even in the face of innovations like “deep fakes,” visual images still have the power to convince. It might even be said when it comes to maps, which, although...
