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New book looks at the world’s greatest cities - attempting to trace their historic form through maps and panoramic views.

Cities of the World: A History in Maps by Peter Whitfield

Cities of the World: A History in Maps - a new British Library publication by Peter Whitfield - holds up a mirror to sixty-four of the world’s greatest cities, and is the first book of its kind to trace their historic form and special character through maps and panoramic views produced over the centuries. Drawing from the Library’s extensive map collection, Cities of the World contains a selection of familiar places such as Rome, Paris, and New York as well as some of the more unusual cities of Isfahan, Palmanova and Karlsruhe.

These colourful reproductions range from plans of the never-built dream city of Azilia, designed in 1717 by Sir Robert Montgomery to be placed in the territory of Georgia, but never built, through the medieval panoramas of Jerusalem, Constantinople and Rome, to the elegant geometric plans and elevations of the eighteenth century cities, to the more familiar grid like designs of conurbations such as Oxford, Stockholm, and 'new cities' like Salt Lake City and Chicago.

Fascination

The fascination of all these maps is the detailed pictorial representation of the historic heart of these cities: the ancient harbour, the encircling walls, the loop of the river, and the churches, palaces and great buildings that have been added over the centuries. These architectural panoramas give us a rich perspective on their subjects which has vanished from today’s more functional town plans, and furthermore they demonstrate the uniqueness of each city’s character and spirit.

Through rich and beautiful illustrations, 'Cities of the World attempts to demonstrate this notion of uniqueness: for example Woensam’s 1500 map of Cologne conveys the vaunting architecture and intense commercial activity of this ancient riverside city. In contrast is the 1902 map of Saigon – a deliberately planned European city set down in equatorial Asia and a model of orderly planning (except perhaps for the 'opium manufactory' in the centre of the city plan!).

As Peter Whitfield states: “Cities bring together cultures and ideas. They convert human power into form, energy into civilisation. They are like brains, directing and developing civilised life, and carrying the weight and intensity of past triumphs. Oxford is so different from Rio and Boston is so different from Lhasa, that when we visit these cities we are different: we experience different emotions, we act different roles and we become mirrors of the city.”

Peter Whitfield is an independent scholar and leading expert in map history and exploration. He is a former director of Stanford’s International Map Centre in London and now runs his own company publishing facsimiles of historic maps. He has written a number of books for the British Library. Most recently Astrology: A History (2001) and Sir Francis Drake (2004).

The new British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom - and one of the world's greatest libraries. The library currently includes 150 million items, in most known languages, with 3 million new items: including a copy of every publication produced in the UK and Ireland, as well as CD, DVD and mini-disc material - being incorporated into the collection every year.

Cities of the World: A History in Maps is published in hardback by the British Library, priced £25.00. The book is available from the British Library Bookshop (tel: +44 (0)20 7412 7735, fax: +44 (0)20 7412 7624, email: bl-bookshop@bl.uk).

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