Going the Distance: Eurasian Trade and the Rise of the Business Corporation, 1400–1700 by Ron Harris (review)

analysis and curation with diagrams and programs for culture-specific history over a Bergsonian longue durée. The book is more conceptual than thematic or chronological, echoing a trend toward “propositions” (the work of Denis Wood) in critical cartography. In my view, the editors are a bit strained to bring empirical source work together, to draw big world-historical conclusions over transimperial zones of contact. To note an example, “We’re once again in an age of discovery. In the nineteenth century we discovered deep time, and in the twentieth deep space” (p. xi). There are visible absences for Eastern Europe and Russia (no Islamic history or Jewish Studies), as well as the Middle East and sub-SaharanAfrica. Maps make places visible, yet they also forget peoples. Every individual essay is carefully researched with footnotes, an abundance of sources, and useful summaries of scholarship on maps. The index is great. The design outlay by University of Chicago Press is second to none. Maps in world history ought to be accessible documents. Overall, I am struck by how well the book’s authors and editors make use of time capsules of visual tools, artefacts, and sources—all done in the growing spirit of the Rumsey Center, with its wealth of resources for researchers. As Rankin usefully points out, “Maps that show a moment (of any duration) as a frozen image are on one end of the photographic axis; at the other end are maps that are more explicit about showing flows, traces, and accumulations” (pp. 19–21). In story, animation, and time warp maps, this is a promising point in finally historicizing GIS itself for future space-time analysis. As an appreciation of maps and open-ended time across cultures and eras, Time in Maps is a fine collection of scholarly essays and a thoughtfully organized book.