Maps that Changed the World

A Lecture Series benefitting The Wright Opera House

This lecture course is designed to chronicle the most
important milestones in the history of cartography. Perhaps they all didn’t change the world—though some in fact did—so much as they changed our view of the world as known at that point in time. Harwood, from one of our key references, noted it well: “maps are the oldest form of human communication, and humans have always been fascinated by their power to represent—or misrepresent—the world we live in.“ They do in fact document the rise and fall of nations, the growth of religion, the start of new sciences, the documentation of totally new lands, and the geographic distribution of various themes (such as elevation, population, disease). Our course will take us from prehistoric rock carvings to digital maps of outer space, a time span that will cover over 8000 years of human history. We will also document the people who were responsible for those milestones where they are known. So the course could really be considered a history of mankind’s thinking, but from a very different perspective than we normally get.