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Mapping the Country: European Geography and the Cartographical Construction of India, 1760-90

Historical Institute of the FernUniversitaet Hagen Germany

Europe's overseas expansion became a challenge for its simultaneously developing sci ences, especially from the eighteenth century onwards. Geography was certainly the most prominent scientific means that was applied to comprehend the earth. As a sub-discipline, cartography enabled overseas territorial penetration. It will be argued in this paper that it had been the cartographical construction of Bengal, and later on India. by British geographers and cartographers in the second half of the eighteenth century that made Britain 's economic, political and eventually military expansion into India possible. Maps became the vital instrurnent for the military control of the land and its population. This was in stark contrast to Europe's development of scientific cartography where cadastral maps were drawn for the fiscal and juridical centralisation of the country and the tight administration of its people. Hence, science was applied to intensify the political regime's grip on the land. In India, cartography was developed in a rather unknown environment to serve the colonial state's immediate needs. Cartography gained its own momentum, along with natural history, geology and botany, creating a specific 'arhive of knowledge'. Thus, besides facilitating the penetration of India, it made colonial rule possible. Science was, therefore, rather applied to legitimise the colonial regime's impact on a foreign country.

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