THE FINE LINE BETWEEN MAPPING AND MAP MAKING

Abstract

Brian Harley's efforts to re-form the history and theory of cartography were doomed by his inability to free himself from the idealism and representationlism that have passed for thinking in the field. Nor did his sturdy British empiricism help him understand the Continental thinkers who dazzled and inspired him. But what he wanted was vital: a proactive cartography embodying the self-conscious awareness only an honest, living history could provide, one that could foreclose the possibility of imagining cartography as objective, as value-free … today.