On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the famously upside-down
McArthur's Universal Corrective Map I've tried to put Australia back where it belongs - down under, that is - and challenge the overbearing Eurocentrism of Eurocentricism by looking at how North really got to be at the top of our maps. The answer, it seems, has more to do with Byzantine Monks and Majorcan Jews than with any Englishman (just more proof, as if any was needed, that the world is run by Majorcans). Anyways, you can read the full piece
here, courtesy of Al Jazeera America. Those interested in more information about medieval maps should check out some of the following:
- Campbell, T. (1987) "Portolan Charts from the Late Thirteenth Century to 1500". The History of Cartography. Volume 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 371–463..
- Nordenskiöld, Adolf Erik (1896) "Résumé of an Essay on the Early History of Charts and Sailing Directions", Report of the Sixth International Geographical Congress: held in London, 1895. London: J. Murray p.685-94
- Nordenskiöld, Adolf Erik (1897) Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of Charts and Sailing Directions, tr. Frances A. Bather, Stockholm: Norstedt.
- Winter, Heinrich (1958) "Catalan Portolan Maps and their place in the total view of cartographic development", Imago Mundi, Vol.11, p. 1-12.
- Evelyn Edson (1997) Mapping Time and Space: how medieval mapmakers viewed their world, London
- J. B. Harley and David Woodward (eds.) (1987) The History of Cartography, Volume I & II: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
