Renaissance Ethnography and the Invention of the Human

Giants, cannibals and other monsters were a regular feature of Renaissance illustrated maps, inhabiting the Americas alongside other indigenous peoples. In a new approach to views of distant peoples, Surekha Davies analyzes this archive alongside prints, costume books and geographical writing. Using sources from Iberia, France, the German lands, the Low Countries, Italy and England, Davies argues that mapmakers and viewers saw these maps as careful syntheses that enabled viewers to compare different peoples. In an age when scholars, missionaries, native peoples and colonial officials debated whether New World inhabitants could – or should – be converted or enslaved, maps were uniquely suited for assessing the impact of environment on bodies and temperaments. Through innovative interdisciplinary methods connecting the European Renaissance to the Atlantic world, Davies uses new sources and questions to explore science as a visual pursuit, revealing how debates about the relationship between humans and monstrous peoples challenged colonial expansion.

'Surekha Davies brings an astounding arsenal of historiographic tools to her interpretation of the ethnographic images on maps and draws on a vast visual and textual archive to provide a compelling account of their evolution, meaning and spread. It is hard to imagine that anyone else would be better placed to interpret this material.' Rebecca Earle, University of Warwick, 'Surekha Davies presents a powerful case for the pivotal role that maps - artifacts conceived as dynamic relations between images and words - played in shaping the attitudes towards the peoples Europeans imagined, or knew to exist, or actually encountered beyond their borders during the age of exploration. Thoroughly researched and richly illustrated, this book will stand as an important reference for readers interested in the shared origins of cultural anthropology, geography, racial ideologies, and imperialism in the West.' Nicolás Wey Gómez, California Institute of Technology, 'By helping us understand the monster in the map, Surekha Davies helps us understand the monster in the mirror - how, exploring and defining the frontier between the human and the monstrous, early modern ethnography and cartography contributed to our notions of what our humanity means.' Felipe Fernández-Armesto, University of Notre Dame, 'Europeans during the Renaissance believed that monsters trolled the distant edges of the world. In this fascinating and beautifully illustrated study, Surekha Davies reveals the crucial role that illustrated maps played in simultaneously maintaining and challenging this ancient wisdom, showing how Europeans struggled to understand the peoples they met during the age of discovery and exploration.' Peter C. Mancall, University of Southern California, 'Renaissance Ethnography and the Invention of the Human is a powerful, erudite, and elegant contribution to our knowledge of the interweaving of cartography, colonialism, and cultural encounter in the century and a half after Columbus set sail. Placing maps at the core of debates about the nature of humankind, this book is essential reading for Renaissance historians and cartographic historians alike.' Robert J. Mayhew, Journal of Historical Geography

Surekha Davies is a cultural historian and historian of science at Western Connecticut State University. Her interests include exploration, observational sciences, cultural encounters, monstrosity and the history of mentalities c.1400–1800. Formerly a British Library Curator and a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, she is a Founding Editor of the series 'Maps, Spaces, Cultures' (Brill). She has held fellowships at the John Carter Brown Library, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Library of Congress and the Newberry Library, and been funded by the American Historical Association and the American Philosophical Society. Her publications include articles in The Historical Journal, History and Anthropology, Renaissance Studies and The Journal of Early Modern History.