Mapping the Silk Road and Beyond
Reproducing the images of 80 historical maps, this collection is something to behold for cartography connoisseurs. Chronologically, its selections span a millennium, from diagrams in illuminated manuscripts, to fanciful early modern maps of Prester John's mythical Christian kingdom, to the charts resulting from James Cook's voyages. Spatially, they depict the trade routes connecting Europe to the Orient, and descriptively--well, that's where Nebenzahl arrives with his expertise. To the untutored eye, premodern maps are colorful but confusingly busy. For each map, Nebenzahl describes its features; its degree of geographical speculation and accuracy; and its contexts of trade, exploration, or conquest. The era of exploration inspired the majority of the maps, including, most rarely, diagrams resulting from the voyages of Chinese admiral Zheng He in the early 1400s. As pleasing as Nebenzahl's book will be to map enthusiasts, the caveat to the acquiring library is that Silk Road fans will find their topic, the title notwithstanding, a faint presence in the work.Gilbert TaylorCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved