The Artistry of Early Korean Cartography

imensions: 20.3 x 1.9 x 29.8 cm

Traslated by Choi Byonghyon. 209 pp. Edited by Alexander Akin. Thoroughly illustrated history of early Korean maps, most photos in color, particularly focusing on the 15th to 19th centuries, with contributions by three of Korea's foremost scholars in the field. The first work of its kind published in English; many maps are specimens from the Kyujanggak archives published here for the first time.

"The Artistry of Early Korean Cartography" is a window on the cultural, technological, and even spiritual factors that affected the way Koreans observed themselves, their landscape, and the rest of the world before the twentieth century. How did cartography stand astride the realms of art and science in pre-modern Korea? How do Koreans today understand the roots of their own culture, and what new perspective can their insights lend to our own views of the world? These questions and many others are taken up by three of Korea's leading scholars, Han Youngwoo, Ahn Hwi-Joon, and Bae Woo Sung. In this book, nearly one hundred color images of important cartographic works open up the 'Hermit Kingdom' to reveal its perceptions of itself and the world around it.