The Rise and Fall of the National Atlas in the Twentieth Century : Power, State and Territory

Between 1900 and 2000, more than seventy countries produced a national atlas, an official or quasi-official rendering of the nation-state in maps and accompanying text.This book considers the reasons behind and characteristics of this state-sponsored cartographic explosion.These national atlases mirror and embody some of the important themes of this turbulent century, including the complex connections between nation, state and territory, the rise of state-sponsored science; the growth of nation-states; colonialism and postcolonialism; and the geography of biopolitics.