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Back to topMr. Selden's Map of China: Decoding the Secrets of a Vanished Cartographer (Hardcover)
Description
Timothy Brook's award-winning Vermeer's Hat unfolded the early history of globalization, using Vermeer's paintings to show how objects like beaver hats and porcelain bowls began to circulate around the world. Now he plumbs the mystery of a single artifact that offers new insights into global connections centuries old.
In 2009, an extraordinary map of China was discovered in Oxford's Bodleian Library-where it had first been deposited 350 years before, then stowed and forgotten for nearly a century. Neither historians of China nor cartography experts had ever seen anything like it. It was so odd that experts would have declared it a fake-yet records confirmed it had been delivered to Oxford in 1659. The “Selden Map,” as it is known, was a puzzle that needing solving.
Brook, a historian of China, set out to explore the riddle. His investigation will lead readers around this elegant, enigmatic work of art, and from the heart of China, via the Southern Ocean, to the court of King James II. In the story of Selden's map, he reveals for us the surprising links between an English scholar and merchants half a world away, and offers novel insights into the power and meaning that a single map can hold. Brook delivers the same anecdote-rich narrative, intriguing characters, and unexpected historical connections that made Vermeer's Hat an instant classic.
About the Author
Timothy Brook is a professor of history and principal of St. John's College at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of many books, including Vermeer's Hat, winner of the Mark Lynton Prize for outstanding achievement in world history, and Confusions of Pleasure, which received the Joseph Levenson Prize from the Association for Asian Studies. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.
Praise For…
“[A] fascinating tale…[Brook] weaves a wonderful tale of the interaction of peoples of a different age in lands where sovereignty was barely a concept.” —Economist
A finely woven story, situating the map’s production and use at the intersection of Chinese enterprise and European curiosity. [Brook] is especially fascinated with the fusion of technical skills necessary to make a map at the juncture of these worlds. His account is . . . a gracefully rendered and highly personal early modern itinerary occasioned by an unusual Chinese map whose features form around not an imperial dynasty but a thriving oceanic culture. Brook takes us into these unsettled waters, with the benefit of long experience of this region of the world. Migrating through many different hands, the Selden map becomes our portolan, guiding us wherever we need to go . . . An enjoyable and elegant micro-history. —The Nation
“The definitive study of the singular Selden Map…The scholar will appreciate the level of detail, breadth of analysis, and ingenuity in Brook's ability to expound such a wealth of history from a single document.” —Publishers Weekly
“A work of exuberant scholarship...An infectious, satisfying exercise in intellectual doggedness.” —Kirkus
“An engagingly written, insightful look into just how fluid perceptions and realities have been in both the past and the present.” —Booklist
“Mr. Selden's Map of China charts a fascinating course…A platter of diversions and fascinations made by someone with a deep knowledge of East Asia in the 1600s.” —Seattle Times
"Spellbinding."
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The Times (UK) on VERMEER'S HAT
"Elegant and quietly important . . . Brook does more than merely sketch the beginnings of globalization and highlight the forces that brought our modern world into being; rather, he offers a timely reminder of humanity’s interdependence." —San Francisco Chronicle on VERMEER'S HAT
"A fascinating approach to cultural history, providing new ways of thinking about the origins of commonplace objects." —Entertainment Weekly on VERMEER'S HAT
"Elegant and quietly important . . . Brook does more than merely sketch the beginnings of globalization and highlight the forces that brought our modern world into being; rather, he offers a timely reminder of humanity's interdependence." —Seattle Times on VERMEER'S HAT