Charting an Empire: Geography at the English Universities 1580-1620How did early modern England—an island nation on the periphery of world affairs—transform itself into the center of a worldwide empire? Lesley B. Cormack argues that the newly institutionalized study of geography played a crucial role in fueling England's imperial ambitions. Cormack demonstrates that geography was part of the Arts curriculum between 1580 and 1620, read at university by a broad range of soon-to-be political, economic, and religious leaders. By teaching these young Englishmen to view their country in a global context, and to see England playing a major role on that stage, geography supplied a set of shared assumptions about the feasibility and desirability of an English empire. Thus, the study of geography helped create an ideology of empire that made possible the actual forays of the next century. Geography emerges in Cormack's account as the fruitful ground between college and court, in whose well-prepared soil the seeds of English imperialism took root. Charting an Empire will interest historians of science, geography, cartography, education, and empire. |
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Contents
Charting an Empire | 1 |
1 Geography and the Changing Face of the English University | 17 |
2 The Social Context of Geography | 48 |
Theory at Practice | 90 |
Tales of Prester John and of the Palace of Edo | 129 |
Geography Writ Small | 163 |
The Third University of London | 203 |
Other editions - View all
Charting an Empire: Geography at the English Universities 1580-1620 Lesley B. Cormack Limited preview - 1997 |
Charting an Empire: Geography at the English Universities 1580-1620 Lesley B. Cormack No preview available - 1997 |
Charting an Empire: Geography at the English Universities 1580-1620 Lesley B. Cormack No preview available - 1997 |
Common terms and phrases
antiquities Antwerp Art of Navigation astronomy Basel Bodl book list book ownership Britannia career chorography Christ Church chronology College Library commonplace book copies Corpus Christi College Cosmographia curriculum Dee's demonstrated descriptive geography books developed E. G. R. Taylor early modern East edition Basel Edward Elizabethan empire England English especially Europe folio Frankfurt geogra geographically inclined globe Gresham College Henry Henry Briggs Henry's court Ibid ideology imperial important included interest in geography Inventory John Dee land large number libri London longitude Lydiat manuscript maps mathematical geography mathematical geography books mathematician McConica medieval Münster octavo Oxford and Cambridge percent Peterhouse political practical Prince of Wales Principal Navigations Ptolemy Purchas quarto Renaissance Rerum Richard Hakluyt scholars seventeenth century sixteenth century Speculum Britanniae statutes Strabo study of geography subdiscipline theoretical Thomas Harriot tion translation Trinity College Ussher Virginia voyages William Camden Wright
Popular passages
Page 257 - The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine, presenting an exact geography of the kingdomes of England, Scotland, Ireland, and the isles adjoyning. With the shires, hundreds, cities, and shire-townes within the kingdome of England, divided and described by John Speed,