麻豆官网

This volume, which adopts the perspective that “maps represent not only space but also time,” is a collection of essays by scholars from multiple disciplines, including the history of cartography, history, geography, and digital humanities. Its purpose is to re-examine approximately 500 years of map culture since the Early Modern Age of Discovery. Traditionally, maps have been understood primarily as visualizations of spatial information; however, a distinctive feature of this book is its demonstration that maps have incorporated temporal dimensions—such as history, memory, change, and projections of the future—in a variety of ways. Indeed, individual chapters analyze maps from different parts of the world as case studies, examining comparatively the production of historical maps, representational techniques for depicting temporal change, and spatiotemporal visualization using digital GIS technologies, ultimately advancing the central proposition that “all maps, in one way or another, tell time.”
 
The originality of the volume is, first, placing the theme the “mapping of time” at the center of research in the history of cartography. Whereas traditional studies of cartographic history have tended to emphasize projection methods, surveying techniques, and connections with imperial expansion, this book demonstrates that layers of temporality are embedded even within maps that appear static, thereby reassessing maps as media of historical narration. In this way, maps are no longer regarded merely as auxiliary materials but as intellectual devices that contribute to historical understanding.
 
Second, the introduction of a global historical perspective is significant. By relativizing Eurocentric views of cartographic history and comparing diverse mapping cultures in Asia, the Americas, the Pacific, and beyond, the volume shows that mapmaking since the Early Modern Period has unfolded on a global scale. This focus connects the history of cartography with imperial history, the history of knowledge, and global history.
 
Third, the book has substantial social relevance in its engagement with contemporary society. Today, digital maps and GIS technologies are indispensable for policymaking, environmental research, and historical visualization; this volume situates this technology within the long-term history of cartography and demonstrates that digital maps belong to a continuous tradition of historical representation. This perspective contributes to critical reflection on visual information literacy and historical consciousness in the age of big data.
 
Taken as a whole, the book redefines maps, from “descriptions of space” to “media for spatiotemporal thinking.” It carries considerable scholarly significance in presenting a new theoretical framework not only for the history of cartography but also for historical studies, cultural studies, and the digital humanities. Moreover, by prompting reconsideration of the influence that maps exert on historical understanding and social decision-making, it challenges assumptions and exerts a powerful social impact. One notable feature of the volume is its comparative presentation of both historical and modern maps from around the world. For readers of the Japanese edition, Chapter 2, “Orienting the Past in Early Modern Japan,” written by one of the editors, the early modern Japanese historian K. Wigen, will be of special interest, as it highlights historical consciousness in Edo-period mapmaking and the role of maps as a form of news media.
 

(Written by FUJISAKI Mamoru, Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences / 2026)