The role of classical Chinese as a written language shared by scholars throughout East Asia meant that books were shared as well. Sometimes they were bestowed as official gifts, sometimes purchased by visiting diplomats, but on a larger scale – albeit one that is difficult to measure – they moved through commercial trade. Such trade sometimes took place directly over the ocean between the mainland and Japan, and sometimes via the Korean peninsula. Ōba Osamu has emphasized the interconnectedness of East Asia in his studies of the ‘Book Road,’ an intellectual reconfiguration of the ‘Silk Road’ that emphasizes not the transfer of wealth, but of knowledge between the Asian mainland and Japan. This transfer of the written word, which Ōba shows was already in full swing by the Tang period (618-907 CE), suggests that when appraising intellectual events in one part of East Asia we should consider influences that affected the region as a whole. Developments in cartography are no exception.

This chapter examines the significance of Ming publishing to cartography in Chosŏn Korea. By this time, Chinese maps had been imported into Korea for centuries through both official and private channels. Such maps even inspired poetry, as Korean readers contemplated their place in a Sinocentric worldview. The Koryo poet Yi Kyubo (1168-1241) responded to a Song map by comparing his peninsula’s small size on the map with its cultural preeminence:

The land and the sea are basically round in shape, and together they form a globe, which is situated in the celestial sphere like the yolk of a chicken’s egg is suspended in the white. It has been said that the earth is ‘fang (方),’ but this refers to its being fixed and immobile, not to a [square] shape.

The heavens envelop the earth and they mutually correspond. Therefore the heavens have two poles, south and north, and the earth does as well. The heavens are divided into 360 degrees, and the earth is too. In the middle of the heavens lies the [celestial] equator. South from the equator 23.5 degrees lies the Tropic of Capricorn, while 23.5 degrees to the north of the equator lies the Tropic of Cancer. Thus, the Middle Kingdom is north of the Tropic of Cancer.

When the sun moves over the equator, day and night are equal. When it moves south of the equator, the day is shorter. When it moves north of the equator, the day is longer. Thus the celestial sphere has an equator in the middle, and two circles of short day (Tropic of Capricorn) and long day (Tropic of Cancer) to the south and north, determining the way the sun circumnavigates the terrestrial globe in its orbit. Likewise, the globe of earth has three corresponding lines. However, the heavens are deep and vast as they envelop the earth and extend outward, while the earth, being situated within the heavens, is very small and constricted. In this respect alone they differ.

Investigation shows that for someone walking due north, each 250 li traveled brings the north pole higher by one degree and the south pole lower by one degree. Walking due south, each 250 li traveled brings the north pole lower by one degree and the south pole higher by one degree. This proves not only that the form of the earth is round, but furthermore that 250 li equal one degree. Thus one circuit of the earth, whether going east-west or north-south, in fact adds up to 90,000 li. Whether going north-south or east-west, they are equivalent with no objective difference.

The land and the sea are basically round in shape, and together they form a globe, which is situated in the celestial sphere like the yolk of a chicken’s egg is suspended in the white. It has been said that the earth is ‘fang (方),’ but this refers to its being fixed and immobile, not to a [square] shape.

The heavens envelop the earth and they mutually correspond. Therefore the heavens have two poles, south and north, and the earth does as well. The heavens are divided into 360 degrees, and the earth is too. In the middle of the heavens lies the equator. South from the equator 23.5 degrees lies [the Tropic of Capricorn, while 23.5 degrees to the north of the equator lies] the Tropic of Cancer. Thus, the Middle Kingdom is north of the Tropic of Cancer.

When the sun moves over the equator, day and night are equal. When it moves south of the equator, the day is shorter. When it moves north of the equator, the day is longer. Thus the celestial sphere has an equator in the middle, and two circles of short day (Tropic of Capricorn) and long day (Tropic of Cancer) to the south and north, determining the way the sun circumnavigates the terrestrial globe in its orbit. Likewise, the globe of earth has three corresponding lines.

Investigation shows that for someone walking due north, each 250 li traveled brings the north pole higher by one degree and the south pole lower by one degree. For one walking due south, each 250 li traveled brings the north pole lower by one degree and the south pole higher by one degree. This proves not only that the form of the earth is round, but furthermore that 250 li equal one degree. Thus one circuit of the earth, whether going east-west or north-south, really adds up to 90,000 li. Whether going north-south or east-west, they are equivalent with no objective difference.

Now, the earth has a thickness (diameter) of 28,636.36 li. It is inhabited on all sides, whether above or below. To put it simplistically, a sphere originally has no up or down. Is there anywhere in the world where one does not look up to see the sky?

In this chapter I will examine the development of a particular cartographic form, the historical map. Beginning with some of the earliest surviving examples of the genre, we will see the diversity of its incarnations and the changes it underwent during the late Ming. Taking this diachronic view of a single genre highlights the transformation wrought by the late Ming publishing boom and its textual recombinations.

A formalized preoccupation with the past was a hallmark of literati culture in imperial China, which stemmed from a belief that the words and deeds of the ancients offered important lessons in statecraft as well as morality. For many, the Classics reflected an ancient reality that could be revived through a return to the true meanings of these texts. From this zeal bloomed scholarship into textual interpretation. This was the context in which Chinese historical geography developed, giving rise to a variety of traditions of cartographic representation.

Familiarity with this tradition in China remains scarce among specialists in Western cartography. In a prominent study of historical cartography, Jeremy Black devotes a portion of his first chapter to justifying his omission of China from the rest of the book. He first concedes that the concept of historical cartography appeared rather early in China, citing the examples of Pei Xiu 裴秀 and the Song dynasty’s Lidai dili zhizhang tu 歷代地理指掌 圖 (Convenient historical atlas) by Shui Anli 稅安禮, the two best-known early works, but argues that the genre failed to develop over time:

I have chosen the mid-sixteenth century as the starting date for this discussion of the late Ming cartographic publishing boom. What begins to change significantly around this point is the range of ways in which maps circulate, the intellectual contexts into which they are placed, and the audiences they reach. From this period forward, maps and their accompanying texts become a significant part of the reading matter of broader sectors of society.

In this chapter we turn to a sequence of major Ming publications, each of which has been chosen for its influence and for its illustration of important trends or turning points in printed cartography. In each case I will outline the ways in which these works organize information, and their relationship to earlier precedent-setting works. We shall see that part of the publishing boom was the reproduction and greatly expanded circulation of earlier materials, some from as early as the Song and Yuan. By the time the illustrated encyclopedias of the early seventeenth century were being compiled, a large proportion of their maps derived directly from the works discussed in this chapter.

As more books featuring maps made their way into print, an increasing number of works featured maps as a self-sufficient component. By the mid-sixteenth century there also appeared an increasing number of large maps made by pasting together multiple printed sheets, which though still heavily annotated with text, were expected to stand on their own for both edification and decoration.

Note that the Da Ming yitong zhi is divided into prefectures, while the Sŭngnam is divided into much smaller counties. Thus any given Sŭngnam entry is unlikely to include all the features listed. Both the Da Ming yitong zhi and the Sŭngnam also list more specialized features for atypical locales, which are not included here. From this list can be grasped at a glance the Sŭngnam’s borrowing of an administrative focus from the Da Ming yitong zhi, while not entirely shedding the literary subject matter of its earlier version influenced by the Fangyu shenglan.

This book has examined the role of the late Ming publishing boom in the evolution of cartography in East Asia, investigating the ways in which the expansion of publishing that began in the mid-sixteenth century affected the nature of cartographic materials and their circulation in East Asia. This has led us to explore relationships between social, political, and intellectual trends of the time and the production and use of maps, revealing rich seams in East Asian cultural history that transcend borders.

In contrast to the roughly contemporary explosion of cartography in some parts of Europe – where new technologies meshed with an age of discovery and the conceptual shifts of the Enlightenment to produce not only the expectation that maps should be constantly updated, but a veritable avalanche of new data with which to do so – map publishing in China up to the mid-Ming existed in the social context of an examination system which played a large role in shaping the evolution of a cartographic canon. Aside from the maps found in gazetteers, a large proportion of early printed maps (as well as maps engraved on stelae erected at school grounds) served as study aids for the Classics and dynastic histories. To contrast this with the situation in Europe, we might imagine what the results would have been if the great cartographers of the 1500s had focused primarily on reconstructions of biblical geography and the shifting borders of post-Roman political entities, rather than piecing together the contours of a world in the process of colonization.

The examination system was therefore a more important driving force for the production of Chinese maps circulating in the public realm than was the territorial imperative or the other processes of early modern state formation. The subject matter of printed maps in late imperial China has a strong tendency toward the didactic rather than the utilitarian. In general, a didactic map was more likely to be needed in multiple examples. Utilitarian maps, such as nautical handbooks for sailing along the coast, were often privileged documents that were copied by hand and not mass-produced for general circulation. Published route books from this period that were meant for real use in navigating road networks relied on text rather than images to provide the level of detail that made them worthwhile

Sources cited in the compilation of the Chouhai tubian, reflecting Zheng Ruozeng’s access to both published works and military maps used by relevant officials. Most of the latter are believed to be lost.

皇明地理十六圖 Huang ming dili shiliu tu (Imperial Ming geography: 16 maps). 南 京都察院本 Volume held by the Nanjing Chief Surveillance Bureau.

大明輿地指掌圖 Da Ming yudi zhizhang tu (Convenient atlas of the Great Ming). 大學士桂萼 Grand Academician Gui E.

歷代地理指掌圖 Lidai dili zhizhang tu (Convenient historical atlas). 宋學士蘇 軾都御史唐順之 (Song Grand Academician Su Shi; [reprinted by or held by?] Censor-in-Chief Tang Shunzhi.

廣輿圖 Guang yutu (Expanded Atlas) 壯元羅洪先 Zhuangyuan [top-ranked jinshi] Luo Hongxian.

沿海七邊圖 Yanhai qibian tu (Map of the coast and seven frontiers). 侍郎錢邦彥 Vice Minister Qian Bangyan.

古今形勝圖 Gujin xingsheng tu (Map of ancient and present topological advantages). 都御史喻時 Censor-in-Chief Yu Shi.

天下圖誌 Tianxia tuzhi (Illustrated gazetteer of All Under Heaven). 閩廖世昭 Liao Shizhao of Fujian. 分野輿圖 Fenye yutu (Map of correlations between the Heavens and Earth). 星源 游濟川 You Jichuan of Xingyuan.

嶺海輿圖 Linghai yutu (Map of mountains and seas) 御史姚虞 Censor Yao Yu. 八閩五十一圖 Ba Min wushi yi tu (Fifty-one maps of the eight Min [Fujian]). 福建五澳圖 Fujian wu ao tu (Map of the five harbors of Fujian).

兩浙海邊圖 Liang zhe haibian tu (Coastal map of Zhejiang). 兵部郎郭仁 Guo Ren, Gentleman of the Ministry of War.

浙東海邊圖 Zhedong haibian tu (Map of the Zhedong Coast). 都御史周倫 Censorin- Chief Zhou Lun.

浙東海邊圖 Zhedong haibian tu (Map of the Zhedong Coast). 太守秦汴 Prefect Qin Bian.

We now turn to one of the few truly novel developments in late Ming cartography, the introduction of a fundamentally different worldview in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. In no region of the world other than East Asia did the Catholic missionaries of the Jesuit order make the introduction of translated European maps a tool of evangelism. That they did so in Ming society and in Japan, and indirectly in Chosŏn as well, is due to their serendipitous arrival at a time when cartographic materials were already proliferating in literate society. The Jesuits realized that a discussion was already going on about issues they could answer in a new way, and cartography emerged as a potential channel for opening conversations that they hoped could lead to their more central religious concerns. As the Jesuits became more familiar with their audience, the nature of existing publications already in circulation, and the types of works that would serve as gateways to their broader mission, this familiarity shaped the direction of their publishing activity under Matteo Ricci (Chinese: Li Madou 利瑪 竇) and his successors.

The Jesuits were active participants in the late Ming publishing boom; they introduced strikingly new material to an already burgeoning traffic in maps while still making use of the preexisting infrastructure of Ming publishing. Jesuit publications entered a churning stream of texts from which others could fish out material for recombination and reconstitution in their own books, in much the same way that earlier Ming works provided raw material for cutting and pasting into late Ming compendia.

The fanli section of the Chongzhen Jiaxing xianzhi indicates that Jiaxing County did not previously have its own gazetteer. The following books were listed as sources for its compilation. [Clarification provided in square brackets.] They illustrate the breadth of both classical and local historical resources that could be drawn upon in this part of the empire.

春秋 Chunqiu [Spring and Autumn Annals, traditionally attributed to Confucius].

吳越春秋 Wu Yue Chunqiu [Attributed to Zhao Ye, Eastern Han]. 越絶書 Yuejue Shu [Attributed to Yuan Kang, Eastern Han].

浙江通志 Zhejiang tongzhi [1561].

元嘉禾志 Yuan Jiahe zhi [Jiahe is a former name for Jiaxing. Compiled by Xu Shuo in the Zhiyuan era].

國朝弘治柳志 Guochao Hongzhi Liu zhi [Jiaxing fuzhi, comp. Liu Yan, 1493].

嘉興趙志 Jiajing Zhao zhi [Jiaxing fu tuji, comp. Zhao Wenhua, 1549].

萬曆沈志 Wanli Shen zhi [Jiaxing fuzhi, comp. Shen Yaozhong, 1600].

秀水黄志 Xiushui Huang zhi [Xiushui xianzhi, comp. Huang Hongxian, 1596].

There was significant cartographic influence in Chosŏn Korea from the earlier Ming period, but very little reflection of the explosion of diversity that took place later in the Ming dynasty or the addition of European materials to the existing repertoire. Japan, also linked to the networks of East Asian textual circulation, offers a host of contrasts in its intersections with late Ming publications as well as Western cartography.

While Japan had much looser political relations with the Ming than did Chosŏn, it engaged in a significant amount of both officially authorized and private trade. Products of the late Ming publishing boom reached Japanese hands in processes that have been chronicled by authors such as Ōba Osamu and Peter Kornicki. In the early decades of the Tokugawa, Japanese readers were fully aware that their islands had been the subject of writings on the continent, and there were readers who were keen to peruse these accounts. Scholars like Matsushita Kenrin gathered together texts and maps produced under various Chinese and Korean dynasties, reproducing and critically evaluating them for a local audience. Imported Ming works also played a significant role in shaping the direction of cartography in Japan, serving as direct inspiration for the geographical content and organization of certain encyclopedias and other popular works. Even after a series of bans on Christianity and European works came into force during the 1630s, discussion of the earth’s sphericity and the ‘Five continents theory’ introduced from Europe continued in Japan, not only because Japanese authorities treated maps differently from other categories of Western texts, but also because syncretic Ming works that had assimilated Jesuit writings introduced such ideas completely shorn of Christian content.

The year 1975 marked five hundred years since a hefty tome published in Lübeck, the Rudimentum Novitorum, had incorporated a simple map of the world printed from two woodblocks. This quincentennial of the first printing of a map in a European book was widely celebrated among bibliophiles. The cartographic historian Arthur H. Robinson termed it a milestone in the annals of communication:

Scholars of Asian cartography might point out that this anniversary celebration was off by hundreds of years, given that East Asian printed maps survive from as early as the twelfth century. Despite this fact, European maps remain the sole focus of much work on cartographic history. What is perhaps more surprising than Robinson’s omission, however, is the degree to which the effects of publishing on cartography in East Asia differ from what we find on the European scene.

We know a fair amount about the competition that arose between printers in some parts of Europe, and the ways such rivalry propelled the evolution of cartographic representation. For example, James Elliot has discussed the ‘peer pressure’ that Sebastian Münster felt after he illustrated a number of cities with woodblock prints in the 1544 edition of his popular Cosmographia.

This chapter begins by defining ideology in a descriptive and amoral fashion. In doing so, it shows that Greimas’s semiotic square provides a useful means by which to conceive, and delineate, the ideology of infinite times from three alternatives that I respectively term the future primitive ideology, the ideology of extinction and the singularity ideology. In line with this framing, the chapter then completes two main tasks. First, it provides a recapitulation of the infinite times ideology; of the role it plays in bringing Alphabet’s diverse activities together; and of the role it plays in aligning the megacorporation’s interests with those of its users worldwide. Second, it explains how Alphabet is directly and indirectly encouraging developments that are consistent with the future primitive, extinction and singularity ideologies that are all, whatever else their differences, similarly opposed to the ideology of infinite times. Given these discussions, the chapter concludes by emphasizing that, as the ideology of infinite times is as finite as any other ideology, it provides one potential source of Alphabet’s ultimate demise.