power. Cadastral maps, records of property ownership,
played an important role in the rise of modern Europe as
tools for the consolidation and extension of land-based
national power.
The Cadastral Map in the Service of the State,
illustrated with 126 maps, traces the development and
application of rural property mapping in Europe from the
Renaissance through the nineteenth century. Beginning with
a review of the roots of cadastral mapping in the Roman
Empire, the authors concentrate on the use of cadastral maps
in the Netherlands, France, England, the Nordic countries,
the German lands, the territories of the Austrian Habsburgs,
and the European colonies. During the sixteenth century
government institutions began to use maps to secure economic
and political bases; by the nineteenth century these maps
had become tools for aggressive governmental control of land
as tax bases, natural resources, and national territories.
This work demonstrates how the seemingly neutral science of
cartography became a political instrument for national
interests.
The manuscript of Cadastral Maps in the Service of
the State was awarded the Kenneth Nebenzahl Prize in
1991.