The First World War led to a radical reshaping of Europe's political borders. Nowhere was this transformation more profound than in East Central Europe, where the collapse of imperial rule led to the emergence of a series of new states. New borders intersected centuries-old networks of commercial, cultural, and social exchange. The new states had to face the challenges posed by territorial fragmentation and at the same time establish durable state structures within an international order that viewed them as, at best, weak, and at worst, as merely provisional entities that would sooner or later be reintegrated into their larger neighbours' territory. Fragmentation in East Central Europe challenges the traditional view that the emergence of these states was the product of a radical rupture that naturally led from defunct empires to nation states. Using the example of Poland and the Baltic States, it retraces the roots of the interwar states of East Central Europe, of their policies, economic developments, and of their conflicts back to the First World War. At the same time, it shows that these states learned to harness the dynamics caused by territorial fragmentation, thus forever changing our understanding of what modern states can do.

This study suggests how traditional language-rich narrative histories of the Pale of Settlement can benefit from drawing on the large vocabularies, questions, theories and analytical methods of human geography, economics and the social sciences for an understanding of how Jewish communities responded to multiple disruptions during the nineteenth century. Moving from the ecological level of systems of settlements and variations among individual ones down to the immediate built environment, the book explores how both physical and human space influenced responses to everyday lives and emigration to America.

People have always attached meaning to the landscape that surrounds them. In Storied Ground Paul Readman uncovers why landscape matters so much to the English people, exploring its particular importance in shaping English national identity amid the transformations of modernity. The book takes us from the fells of the Lake District to the uplands of Northumberland; from the streetscapes of industrial Manchester to the heart of London. This panoramic journey reveals the significance, not only of the physical characteristics of landscapes, but also of the sense of the past, collective memories and cultural traditions that give these places their meaning. Between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries, Englishness extended far beyond the pastoral idyll of chocolate-box thatched cottages, waving fields of corn and quaint country churches. It was found in diverse locations - urban as well as rural, north as well as south - and it took strikingly diverse forms.

This book explores three authors who wrote about the rise of the Roman Empire: Polybius, Posidonius, and Strabo. It examines the overlap between geography and history in their works, and considers the way in which pre-existing traditions were used but transformed in order to describe the new world of Rome.

A superbly illustrated guide to 64 maps from all around the world! From examples of medieval Mappa Mundi and the first atlas to Google Earth and maps of the moon, this captivating maps book is a must-have for all history and geography enthusiasts and explorers! Embark on a visual tour of the world's finest maps! This fascinating world atlas book: - Analyses each map visually, with the help of pull-outs and graphic close-up details - Traces the history of maps chronologically, providing a fascinating overview of cartography through the ages - Tells the story behind each map - why it was created, who it was for, and how it was achieved - Profiles key cartographers, explorers, and artists - Draws together navigation, propaganda, power, art, and politics through the world's greatest maps Maps are much more than just geographical data. They are an accurate reflection of the culture and context of different time frames in history. This remarkable geography book puts cartography on the map! It tells the stories behind great maps through stunning pull-out details and reveals how they have helped people make sense of the world. Embark on a global adventure of a lifetime with this world map book and see our planet like never before! On this mind-blowing journey, you'll encounter maps that show the way to heaven, depict lands with no sunshine and even the world ocean floor. With incredible secret stories from British historian, Jerry Brotton, and insight into how mapmakers have expressed their world views, Great Maps is a welcome addition to any armchair cartographer's bookshelf.

Over the past two thousand years London has developed from a small town, fitting snugly within its walls, into one of the world's largest and most dynamic cities. This beautifully illustrated book charts that growth and the city's transformation through hundreds of maps culled from the collection of the British Library's Map Library. These visual records range from sweeping images of the entire city to nuanced studies of its elements and neighborhoods. Including official documents, individual endeavors, hand-drawn renditions, and technologically advanced replicas, these maps represent a variety of perspectives. Utilitarian maps show the city as it is and serve to elucidate its inner workings, while carefully wrought plans show the city as it was envisioned--whether those plans were executed or not. The maps and panoramas collected here are more than topographical records. They all convey unique insight into the concerns, assumptions, ambitions, and prejudices of Londoners at the time the maps were created. In addition to offering readers a tour of London past and present, this book reveals the inside story of the creation, growth, and change of one of the world's greatest cities.

Hundreds of exceptional cartographic images are scattered throughout medieval and early modern Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscript collections. The plethora of copies created around the Islamic world over the course of eight centuries testifies to the enduring importance of these medieval visions for the Muslim cartographic imagination. With Medieval Islamic Maps, historian Karen C. Pinto brings us the first in-depth exploration of medieval Islamic cartography from the mid-tenth to the nineteenth century. Pinto focuses on the distinct tradition of maps known collectively as the Book of Roads and Kingdoms (Kitab al-Masalik wa al-Mamalik, or KMMS), examining them from three distinct angles--iconography, context, and patronage. She untangles the history of the KMMS maps, traces their inception and evolution, and analyzes them to reveal the identities of their creators, painters, and patrons, as well as the vivid realities of the social and physical world they depicted. In doing so, Pinto develops innovative techniques for approaching the visual record of Islamic history, explores how medieval Muslims perceived themselves and their world, and brings Middle Eastern maps into the forefront of the study of the history of cartography.

Dismissed in early years as a wasteland, the rolling open country that covers the interior parts of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho is today one of the richest farmlands in the nation. This work is the story of its transformation. Meinig traces all of the aspects of its development by combining geographic description with historical narrative.

The only compact yet comprehensive survey of environmental and cultural forces that have shaped the visual character and geographical diversity of the settled American landscape. The book examines the large-scale historical influences that have molded the varied human adaptation of the continent's physical topography to its needs over more than 500 years. It presents a synoptic view of myriad historical processes working together or in conflict, and illustrates them through their survival in or disappearance from the everyday landscapes of today.

Follow the conflict of the Second World War from 1939 to 1945 in this unique volume, published in association with Imperial War Museums, London, featuring historical maps and photographs from their archives, and fascinating commentary from an expert historian. Over 150 maps tell the story of how this global war was fought. Types of maps featured: * Strategic maps showing theatres of war, frontiers and occupied territories * Maps covering key battles and offensives on major fronts * Planning and operations maps showing defences in detail * Propaganda and educational maps for the armed forces and general public * Maps showing dispositions of Allied and enemy forces * Bomber and V-weapon target maps Descriptions of key historical events accompany the maps, giving an illustrated history of the war from an expert historian. Key topics covered include * 1939: Invasion of Poland * 1940: German invasion of Low Countries & France * 1940: Battle of Britain & German invasion threat * Dec 1941: Pearl Harbor * 1942: Turning points: Midway, Alamein, Stalingrad * 1941-45: Barbarossa and the Eastern Front * The War at Sea * The advances to Jerusalem, Damascus and Baghdad * The War in the Air * 1944: Neptune & Overlord; D-Day & liberation of France

An award-winning environmental historian explores American history through wrenching, tragic, and sometimes humorous stories of getting lost "Fascinating. . . . Underlying . . . is a deep belief in the importance of collaboration and cooperation between humans and their environments, as well as between humans and other humans."-Robert Macfarlane, New York Review of Books The human species has a propensity for getting lost. The American people, inhabiting a mental landscape shaped by their attempts to plant roots and to break free, are no exception. In this engaging book, environmental historian Jon Coleman bypasses the trailblazers so often described in American history to follow instead the strays and drifters who went missing. From Hernando de Soto's failed quest for riches in the American southeast to the recent trend of getting lost as a therapeutic escape from modernity, this book details a unique history of location and movement as well as the confrontations that occur when our physical and mental conceptions of space become disjointed. Whether we get lost in the woods, the plains, or the digital grid, Coleman argues that getting lost allows us to see wilderness anew and connect with generations across five centuries to discover a surprising and edgy American identity.

The third volume in The Cambridge Urban History of Britain examines the process of urbanisation and suburbanisation from the early Victorian period to the twentieth century. Twenty-eight leading scholars provide a coherent, systematic, historical investigation of the rise of cities and towns in England, Scotland and Wales, examining not only the evolving networks and types of towns, but their economic, demographic, social, political, cultural and physical development. The contributors discuss pollution and disease, the resolution of social conflict, the relationships between towns and the surrounding countryside, new opportunities for leisure and consumption, the development of local civic institutions and identities, and the evolution of municipal and state responsibilities. This comprehensive volume gives unique insights into the development of the urban landscape. Its detailed overview and analyses of the problems and opportunities which arise shed historical light on many of the issues and challenges that we face today.

Reproduction of 48 maps from Lincolnshire's past sheds new light on the county's history. The low-lying parts of Lincolnshire are covered by an array of maps of intermediate scope, covering a greater area than a single parish but less than the whole county. Typically produced in connection with drainage or water transport, and considerably predating the Ordnance Survey, to which many are comparable, they go back as far as the medieval period, with the remarkable Kirkstead Psalter Map of the West and Wildmore Fens [c.1232-39], and continue to the late nineteenth century. . This volume covers the Witham Valley, with the East, West and Wildmore Fens north of Boston, but extending as far as Grantham and Skegness, reproducing the most important of the maps and listing the less useful ones. The history of the drainage of the area is unusually dramatic. By 1750 the Witham was a failed river: the winter floods were worse than they had been for centuries and navigation from Boston to Lincoln had ceased. Over the following sixty years, local interests, aided by some able engineers, brought both navigation and drainage to a state of perfection that made Lincolnshire prosperous and fed the industrial north. These maps, reproduced here to a very high quality and in both colour and black and white, are an essential tool for understanding this history, and the volume thus illuminates certain episodes that have previously been opaque. They are accompanied by a cartobibliography and introduction.

In 1770, Thomas Forrest (c.1729-c.1802) was involved in establishing a new free port at Balambangan, Malaysia, which would improve the British East India Company's trade routes eastwards. In 1774 he agreed to lead an expedition on the Company's behalf to find out more about the waters between Malaysia and New Guinea. This 1779 publication (reissued in the Dublin edition) tells the story of Forrest's fifteen-month voyage in a small local vessel crewed by Malaysians, exploring the archipelago between the Philippines and present-day Indonesia. A French translation appeared in 1780, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt referred to the book fifty years later. Forrest describes the islands, their populations, and their vegetation, including different spices. He discusses relations between local rulers, and the rivalries between the British and the Dutch, particularly as regards control of the spice trade. The book also contains a substantial vocabulary of the Maguindanao language.

The so-called land question dominates political discourse in British Columbia. Unstable Properties reverses the usual approach – investigating Aboriginal claims to Crown land – to reframe the issue as a history of Crown attempts to solidify claims to Indigenous territory. From the historical-geographic processes through which the BC polity became entrenched in its present territory to key events of the twenty-first century, the authors highlight the unstable ideological foundation of land and title arrangements. In the process, they demonstrate that only by understanding diverse interpretations of sovereignty, governance, territory, and property can we move toward meaningful reconciliation.

This book was immediately recognised on its publication in 1894 as a major work of scholarship, and reached twenty-five editions during its author's lifetime. The intention of George Adam Smith (1856 1942) was to produce a work which would 'give a vision of the land as a whole' and help the reader 'to hear through it the sound of running history'. Smith, an enthusiastic alpinist, had studied divinity in Edinburgh, and first visited Palestine in 1880, travelling around the country on foot. The book was written while Smith was teaching at Glasgow, and working on various social projects in Scotland. His detailed knowledge of the territory, together with his wide familiarity with the archaeological and historical background, gives the work authority. The book places the land in its historical context, and describes the physical geography and climate; the readability of its style is enhanced by detailed maps, some in colour."