A malleable map

de Kären Wigen

"A Malleable Map is a striking example of what a historically deep, learned, and meticulous examination of maps and geographical place-making can teach us. Wigen's compelling analysis and stunning graphics set a new standard for understanding the production of spatial identity." "In this highly original work, author Karen Wigen takes the reader on an exciting journey across the elaborate history and colorful techniques of Japanese cartography. Through a series of wonderful stories, we learn of the progression of fudoki and kuniezu, early mapping to gazetteers, modern techniques of mapping, statistical yearbooks, and newspapers. The author has a talent for stating her inferences and conclusions while leaving the reader much room and motivation to think forward. This is truly a fascinating work. And, of course, the maps are gorgeous." In this pathbreaking book, Karen Wigen probes regional cartography, chorography, and statecraft to redefine restoration (ishin) in modern Japanese history. As developed here, that term designates not the quick coup d'etat of 1868 but a three-centuries-long project of rehabilitating an ancient map for modern purposes. Drawing on a wide range of geographical documents from Shinano (present-day Nagano Prefecture), Wigen argues that both the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1600-1868) and the reformers of the Meiji era (1868-1912) recruited the classical map to serve the cause of administrative reform. Nor were they alone: provincial men of letters played an equally critical role in bringing imperial geography back to life in the countryside. To substantiate these claims, Wigen traces the continuing career of the classical court's most important unit of governance--the province--in central Honshu. Her meticulous study of Shinano recasts the Meiji Restoration as a geographical process and challenges Western theories about the spatial dynamics of modernization. --Book Jacket.