There is little documented mapping of conflict prior to the Renaissance period, but, from the 17th century onward, military commanders and strategists began to document the wars in which they were involved and, later, to use mapping to actually plan the progress of a conflict. Using contemporary maps, this sumptuous new volume covers the history of the mapping of land wars, and shows the way in which maps provide a guide to the history of war. Content The beginnings of military mapping prior to 1600, such as the impact of printing and the introduction of gunpowder. The seventeenth The focus is on maps to illustrate war, rather than as a planning tool, and the chapter considers the particular significance of mapping fortifications. The eighteenth The growing need for maps on a world scale reflects the spread of European power, and of transoceanic conflict between Europeans. This chapter deals particularly with the American Revolution. The nineteenth Key developments included contouring and the creation of military surveying. Subjects include the Napoleonic Wars and the American Civil War The twentieth Extended features on the First and Second World Wars, featuring maps detailing trench warfare and aerial reconnaissance. Much of the chapter centers on the period from 1945 to the present day, including special sections on the Vietnam War and the Gulf Wars.
Author
Professor Jeremy Black MBE is an English historian and a Professor of History at the University of Exeter. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of America and the West at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is the author of over 100 books, principally but not exclusively on 18th-century British politics and international relations, and has been described as "the most prolific historical scholar of our age". Black graduated from Queens' College, Cambridge with a starred first, and then undertook postgraduate work at St John's and Merton Colleges, Oxford. He taught at Durham University for 16 years from 1980 to 1996, firstly as a lecturer and then as a Professor. In 1996 he moved to Exeter University where he took up the post of Professor of History. He has lectured extensively in Australasia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and the U.S.. He was editor of Archives, the journal of the British Records Association, from 1989 to 2005. He has served on the Council of the British Records Association (1989–2005); the Council of the Royal Historical Society (1993–1996 and 1997–2000); and the Council of the List and Index Society (from 1997). He has sat on the editorial boards of History Today, International History Review, Journal of Military History, Media History and the Journal of the Royal United Services Institute (now the RUSI Journal). He is an advisory fellow of the Barsanti Military History Center at the University of North Texas. He was awarded an MBE in 2000 for services to stamp design, as advisor to the Royal Mail from 1997.
