Chosŏn Cartography in Trans-regional Context

Presented by Alexander Akin

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Alexander Akin (Harvard University, 2009) has published a number of articles on East Asian maps and edited the English translation of The Artistry of Early Korean Cartography (Tamal Vista Publications, 2008). He co-owns Bolerium Books in San Francisco.

For more information, see: https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789463726122/east-asian-cartographic-print-culture

In his new book, East Asian Cartographic Print Culture: The Late Ming Publishing Boom and its Trans-Regional Connections (Amsterdam University Press), Dr. Akin examines how the expansion of publishing in the late Ming dynasty prompted changes in the nature and circulation of cartographic materials in East Asia. Focusing on mass-produced printed maps, this book investigates a series of path-breaking late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century works in genres including geographical education, military affairs, and history, analysing how maps achieved unprecedented penetration among published materials, even in the absence of major theoretical or technological changes like those that transformed contemporary European cartography. By examining contemporaneous developments in neighboring Choson Korea and Japan, the study demonstrates the crucial importance of considering the broader East Asian sphere in this period as a network of communication and publication, rather than as discrete units with separate cartographic histories. It also reexamines the place of the Jesuits in this context, arguing that their printing of maps on Ming soil should be seen as participation in the local cartographic publishing boom and its trans-regional repercussions.