"This deeply researched book demonstrates the important role marine charts and maps played in shaping worldviews and imperial politics and how these were transformed after the Portuguese initiated European exploration of the Atlantic. Carefully explicating the most important maps of the era, Metcalf explains their construction in great detail. This is a strong piece of scholarship that should appeal to readers in a variety of fields and be adopted for course use."
"An excellently written and painstakingly researched account of a handful of the earliest large-scale maps of the Americas, beginning with Juan de la Cosa and ending with Waldseemüller. Metcalf also pays a great deal of attention to the mechanical process of making these maps."
"Metcalf references a remarkable array of manuscript and printed maps and charts to advance a provocative argument: by depicting the Atlantic Ocean as a place of opportunity and exploitation, these artifacts both explained Europeans' rapid interest in the western Atlantic and created the Atlantic World. An original approach and interpretation, sure to interest readers in diverse fields."
"Carefully following the craft of manuscript chart-makers and print-makers of maps, Metcalf brilliantly demonstrates that when European world maps were radically and suddenly decentered circa 1500, it was artisans, not emperors, missionaries, or conquistadors, who established the conventions of how to represent continents and new peoples for centuries to come."
"In this erudite and deeply researched volume, Alida Metcalf probes how the Atlantic Ocean became central to the production of maps, forerunners of the integrated Atlantic world brought about by European expansion. By meticulously reconstructing circuits of knowledge and networks of individuals, this book makes a major contribution to multiple fields of historical inquiry."
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