Book Review: Francesc Relano, The shaping of Africa: cosmographic discourse and cartographic science in late medieval and early modern Europe (2004)

Authors

Adam Robert Lucas, University of WollongongFollow

RIS ID

23694

Publication Details

Lucas, A. R. (2005). Book Review: Francesc Relano, The shaping of Africa: cosmographic discourse and cartographic science in late medieval and early modern Europe (2004). British Journal for the History of Science, 38 (4), 477-478.

Abstract

The main ambition of Francesc Relan˜ o’s fascinating book The Shaping of Africa is to show how the idea of Africa, as a continent distinct from Europe and Asia, emerged between the late Middle Ages and the early modern period from a mixture of natural philosophical, theological, nautical and popular discourses, as well as from several initially separate traditions of mapmaking. He illustrates in the process that the African interior remained largely a mystery to Europeans until the late nineteenth century.